Direct Marketing

The best direct marketing book of the past 15 years

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Do you like books?

Do you like marketing books?

Do you like valuable marketing books that can legitimately make you millions of dollars, if you only consistently apply what they tell you to do?

If so, I got something for you.

This whole year I’ve been reading and rereading a book, without telling anyone anywhere what it is. It’s the first time I’ve come across an information resource that is so valuable that I wanted to keep it and hoard it for myself, like a miserly dragon.

This book is:

1. Published relatively recently.

2. Almost unknown. I haven’t heard anybody else talking about it, and as per Amazon, it’s not selling.

3. Written by a direct marketing legend who has little personal charisma and either little skill or little interest in building up a big personal brand. (How is he still a legend then? That’s something I will only tease for now.)

4. The most valuable and useful and impactful book about direct marketing in the past 15 years, going back to Mark Ford and John Forde’s Great Leads, which was published back in 2011. That’s according to me, somebody who has read and reread all the great direct marketing books, and some of the not-so-great, and who has made millions in sales via the ideas I’ve learned in those books.

Now here’s my deal for you:

I’m currently running my Tour de Commandments event. I’m using it to mark one year since I published my 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. book.

The deal is that if you buy 5 copies of my book (or 4, in case already have a copy), I’ll give you a buncha bonuses.

My new bonus for today is that I’ll give you (well, kinda) this best direct marketing book of the past 15 years.

This book sells on Amazon right now for $15 for the paperback.

The thing is, I have no interest in going on Amazon and actually filling out your shipping details and ordering this book this book on your behalf and shipping it to your door. I’ve done that before, and it’s frankly too much work for the small offer I am making right now as part of this Tour de Commandments event.

But I also know the value of getting something for FREE.

So my deal is:

Take me up on my Tour de Commandments offer.

I will tell you the name of this book, and I will give you $15 in Bejako Bux to offset the price if you wanna buy it. You can use this $15 in Bejako Bux towards any of my courses or coaching (or anything I sell directly on my site).

(If by some minuscule chance you already own this direct marketing book, you still get to keep the $15 in Bejako Bux.)

Plus, I’ll also tell you a second resource, by the same uncharismatic direct marketing legend, equally as obscure and unknown, which I have been bingeing on for weeks now. It’s got so many valuable marketing ideas that it could legitimately be packaged up as a $30k/year mastermind. But it’s available for free, if you only know where to look, and that’s what I’ll tell you.

Plus plus, there are the other Tour de Commandments bonuses I have promised so far:

#1. “Manna for Marketers” live workshop and implementation call

Happening next Wednesday at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I will cover I’ve consciously applied these 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. in my biz. I’ll also offer you my help and input if you want to raise your hand live on the call, and ask me how to apply any of these commandments to your biz (or life).

#2. “3 lessons after $18,487 spent on running Amazon book ads”

Over the past 7 years, I’ve spent $18,487 on Amazon book ads. The majority of those ads have been for my two “10 Commandments of SOMETHING” books. I’ve put together a report on the 3 main lessons learned after 7 years, thousands of copies sold, and $18k+ in ad spend.

#3. “40 Pages to Authority: A $1k article series”

Back in 2023, the the Professional Writers Alliance paid me $1,000 to write a 4-part article series about my experiences writing, promoting, and profiting from a 40-page book (my first 10 Commandments book).

PWA made these articles available to their paying members only. But you can get them as a free bonus for taking me up on my Tour De Commandments offer.

#4. “How I made an extra $1404.53/month in Amazon royalties at the push of a button”

This report outlines a hack, which involves the push of a button — literally, that’s all there is to it — and which made me an extra ~$1.5k per month in Amazon royalties. I used this hack once, over the span of a few months, or rather a few weeks. I made money with it. And I never used it again.

I’m not saying anybody else should use this hack. I’m not saying anybody else should NOT use it either.

All I’m willing to do is to tell you what this hack is, why I’m no longer using it myself, and how you can try it out yourself, if you so choose, to make easy money off Amazon.

If you want to take me up on this Tour de Commandments offer, here’s what to do:

1. Grab five paperback copies of the 10 Commandments book (or four, if you’ve already got a paperback and can dig up that receipt as proof)

2. Forward me your receipt (or receipts, if you already got one) from Amazon

3. I’ll get you in for the Manna for Marketers workshop, and get you access to the above bonuses, as well others I release in the coming days.

If you’re in, here’s where to take me up on this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Announcing: Tour de Commandments

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Today, being May 11, marks the busy and drama-filled kickoff of Tour de Commandments, a special event to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of my conveniently titled book:

“10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters”

I published this book exactly a year ago, on May 11, 2025.

Since then, I have sold some 4k copies of this book… gotten a bunch of 5-star reviews (“Can’t tell you how glad I am that I clicked Buy Now”… “This is going into my yearly reads collection”… “More compelling than Cialdini with sprinkles of Houdini”)… and had people tell me this is the best thing I’ve ever written.

And now, I have a spectacular, amazing, uncanny Tour de Commandments bonus bundle to encourage you to get your copy, and a few extra copies to boot.

Over the course of this event, I’ll be dripping and leaking these bonuses. Today, I’ll tell you about just the first leg of the Tour de Commandments bonus bundle:

“Manna for Marketers,” a live implementation workshop for the influence ideas from the 10 Commandments book.

Who: For email marketers, list owners, course creators, online business owners, coaches, and sales professionals.

What: How I’ve consciously applied these 10 commandments in my biz, in expectation of this workshop. Plus, my help and input if you want to raise your hand live on the call, and ask me how to apply any of these commandments to your biz (or life).

Why: The #1 thing my readers have been asking me for, on the back of this 10 commandments book, is advice and examples on how to implement these ideas.

So I’m giving it to you.

You can see behind the curtains of how I use these commandments practically. You can get ideas for how you too can use them. And can get my direct help in tweaking these ideas to help you perform miracles of persuasion.

How: Like a gameshow? Listening to me rattle on for a long time is not fun for anybody. So I’ll apply everything I know about making workshops fun, interactive, and even exciting to this “Manna for Marketers” workshop.

There will be a gameshow component, there will be rewards and prizes, and you might win a brand new Tesla (ok no Tesla but everything else is true).

When and where: Next Wednesday, May 20th, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, inside the Big Store (I’ll send you a link if you take me up on the offer below.) And of course, if you cannot make it live, there will be a recording, which others will have to pay for, but which you get for free, as part of this special event.

As I said, I will tell you about the remaining bonuses over the coming days.

If you already know you want to participate in the Tour de Commandments based on the Manna for Marketers live workshop, here’s what to do:

1. Grab your five paperback copies of the 10 Commandments book (or four, if you’ve already got a paperback and can dig up that receipt as proof)

2. Forward me your receipt (or receipts, if you already got one) from Amazon

3. I’ll get you in for the Manna for Marketers workshop, and all the remaining bonuses as I release them over the next few days

If you’re in, here’s where to take me up on this offer and reserve your spot for “Manna for Marketers”:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

Off-market affiliate deals

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I’ve been lurking on Facebook lately, doing research for my low-ticket funnel. That’s how I came across an interesting new offer for coaches and consultants:

1. We will build out a low-ticket funnel for you, for free

2. We will run traffic to it, for free, using our own money

3. We will drive buyers who come through this funnel to a sales call for your high-ticket coaching or consulting offer

4. We only take a cut when you close a deal

I don’t know how well these guys are doing.

But I do know another company that effectively has this same business model.

It’s a company I used to write copy for back in the day.

They didn’t advertise that this was their business model, but since I was a copywriter for them, I know that that’s what they did.

They started out with real estate investing gurus who had high-ticket coaching programs, and then graduated to more general bizopp coaching offers.

I happen to know that they were making a killing back when I was working with them. They only seem to have gotten bigger since.

My point for you is:

Affiliate marketing is great.

It allows you to promote and profit from offers, without having to go through the massive trouble of creating and delivering those offers.

Affiliate marketing also sucks.

Most of the available affiliate offers are no good, and the few good ones have a ton of other people promoting them.

The solution to this dilemma is to roll your own off-market affiliate offers, like the guys above.

In other words, to find people who have good offers, or the makings of good offers, but who aren’t promoting them adequately, and who certainly don’t have affiliate programs…

… and then make some sort of a deal with them to promote them adequately, using your own skills and resources.

(And better yet, to put yourself in toll position, so you get the unique right to promote this off-market affiliate deal, while others only look on with wonder and envy.)

If this is something that interests you, you can go off on your own right now and start doing.

I really hope that’s what you will do.

But if you want some support and help for this kind of stuff, my best recommendation is the Royalty Ronin community, which in many ways is a community of people who are rolling their own off-market affiliate deals, using various techniques and approaches.

In case you wanna find out more, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial here:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you sign up for Ronin and make it past the first 7 days, write me and let me know. I’ve got some bonuses with your name on them.

My list swap outreach template

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Today I wanna tell you about a free database of list swap partners, and how to actually use it to get others to promote you, even if your list is tiny.

First off, the database:

You’ve probably heard of it, because many list owners have promoted it over the past few months. It’s called List Match.

I’m late to the game of promoting List Match, but I will aim to make up for it.

Because since February, I have been signed up for List Match myself.

Thanks to that experience, I can tell you the good and the bad of List Match, and how you can turn the bad into great for you.

The good of List Match:

The people behind List Match keep promoting it. That means the platform is full of list owners who have said they want to run a list swap, and who have even gone through the trouble of signing up for an account and creating a profile.

The List Match database is fresh and more people keep getting added every week.

There are some whales on there, but most of the people on List Match have small audiences. (That fixes the problem of, “my list is too small for a list swap.”)

The bad of List Match:

List Match is hosted on Circle, which is community platform, and simply not a fit for a database tool like this.

People are supposed to “like” your automatically generated profile post, and then Circle is supposed to notify you, so you can somehow pick up the interaction.

I never get notified. Plus discovery of potential partners is inconvenient at best.

(I’ll tell you in a second the only decent way I’ve found to discover relevant newsletters on List Match).

How to turn the bad into great:

Like I said, the people behind List Match keep promoting and expanding the database. That means new people sign up, expecting others to reach out to them (that’s the official promise).

But because of List Match being on Circle and the tech problems around that, few if any of these list owners ever get any possible partners reaching out to them.

That becomes your opportunity, because this is effectively a starving crowd of people who have expressed interest in an outcome (list swaps), except nobody is satisfying that hunger for them.

My advice:

1. Get on List Match yourself

2. Once you’re on it, don’t just scroll through the hundreds of list owners on there. Instead, search the database using the search function for terms relevant to you.

(I just tried “email marketing” and found dozens of good people, including ones I have already done swaps with, bought ads from, have inside my Monetization Mastermind community, etc.)

3. Instead of relying on Circle’s unreliable “like” notifications, hoping that if you “like” somebody they will reach out to you, you reach out to them, and you do it off Circle.

(Yes, you have to be the one to take 100% of the initiative. But that’s precisely where the gold is, not just in this particular case, but everywhere else in life.)

List Match gives you the website of the person who wants to do a list swap.

Go to their website, find their contact email, or barring that, sign up to their list and then hit reply when you get the welcome email.

This bit of work is super likely to pay off. Again, these aren’t random list owners that you are cold-pitching for a list swap.

Instead, they are people who have expressly stated they are looking for list swaps… who have shared their list size so you know you are in the same ballpark… and who you have something in common with (you are both on List Match).

You can use these facts and your own copywriting or networking skill to craft a short outreach message to encourage these people to respond to you and to agree to a list swap.

Or if you like, I have a ready-made and proven list swap outreach email I’ve used in the past with another, earlier database of list swap prospects. You can use my outreach message instead of writing your own.

I used this outreach email to do a buncha list swaps for my now-dormant longevity newsletter.

Almost every list owner I reached out to with this message got back to me, and most people said yes, including when I had just a few subs.

My deal to you:

1. Sign up for List Match using my link here (it’s free): ​https://bejakovic.com/listmatch​

2. Forward me your account confirmation email (mine had the subject line, “Your account is ready”)

3. I will then send you the list swap outreach email I’ve used in the past, plus a templatized version you can fill in the blanks for and send out yourself

The daily email model is on its way out

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A few days ago, I sent out an email asking my readers if they are still interested in sending daily emails for their business.

To which I got a reply from a genuine A-list copywriter who sometimes reads my daily emails, somebody with a history of top-level marketing results, who wrote:

“I don’t have time to get them. If there’s a way to subscribe to fewer I’d love that. They’re all quite good but it’s a time management thing. I believe with very few exceptions the daily email model is on its way out.”

That’s good to know.

In other news, last month, email marketer Liz Wilcox ran an affiliate contest to promote the yearly subscription of her membership.

Despite my distaste for affiliate contests, I decided to participate because the prize for the top affiliate was a solo email to Liz’s very responsive list of about 15k people.

A few days later, the results rolled in:

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First prize (solo email to my list):

JOHN BEJAKOVIC

Second prize (1:1 session with me):

TARZAN KAY

Third prize ($100 gift card lottery winner):

CAT GRIFFIN

===

I didn’t know these other two people but I looked them up. Tarzan Kay sends weekly emails to a list that’s more than twice as large as mine (and that was recently “scrubbed” for engagement from a list that was almost 4x the size of mine).

As for Cat Griffin, she sends sporadic emails to her list and does most of her marketing on Instagram instead.

I don’t know how Tarzan and Cat promoted Liz’s offer to their audiences. I promoted it by sending a single daily email, and that was enough to win me the affiliate contest.

Point being:

1st place: Daily emails

2nd place: Weekly emails

3rd place: Sporadic emails

You can choose not to send daily emails because you’ve decided you have better, higher priority things to do.

That’s a legit decision to make.

And while the daily email model is on the way out, the same way that direct response copywriting, and marketing, and business more generally are on the way out…

I have personally found that relentless followup, relationship building, and continuous attempts at being present in prospects’ and customers’ lives, even if ignored or rebuffed by most of those people, still remain the most effective way of using email to make money.

If you’d like to start sending daily emails, so you can be in 1st place in your own niche, I have a daily email prompts service to help you do that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Three Most Valuable Offers with your name on them

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For the past few weeks, I have been helping a small group of folks design, launch, and deliver a paid live workshop, something I’m calling Most Valuable Offer.

These folks are running their Most Valuable Offers to their own lists and audiences.

But part of my own deal to them, for this initial cohort, was to get a bit of added distribution via a mention in this newsletter, if they launch their Most Valuable Offer before the end of April.

Three brave souls have done so and have taken me up on my deal.

Maybe you will be interested in the unique and Most Valuable Offers they are making? Here they are, for you to evaluate, judge, and decide:

#1 “The same system powers a live campaign right now with a 26% reply rate and 86 new clients won”

Ryan Lemos runs a Dubai-based AI agency and is hosting a live online 2-hour Claude Code workshop on May 14, where you will build two systems: one that automatically researches your ideal clients, and one that turns that research into LinkedIn content written in your voice.

No coding required. The same system powers a live campaign he is running right now with a 26% reply rate and 86 new clients won.

It is hands-on from the first minute, and both systems will be running before you close your laptop.

Click here to get the full details: https://claudecodeworkshop.replit.app/

#2 “For experienced coaches and consultants who have something valuable to share, but haven’t moved yet”

If you’ve got expertise but keep spinning about what to launch, this may help.

Steph DragonHeart Benedetto has put together a short, practical email series on how to choose the right offer when you have too many good ideas. It’s for experienced creators, coaches, and consultants who have something valuable to share, but haven’t moved yet.

Over 5 emails, she’ll help you choose a direction, simplify it, and take a real step forward. She’ll also share the details of her “Get It Done” workshop where (you guessed it) you’ll actually get it done and hit send.

Grab it here: https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/getitdonebejako

#3 “Reclaim your evening with a simple shift about time itself”

Tom Grundy is a City of London banker who used to work so late the office cleaner would vacuum between his legs at his desk.

Nowadays, he eats dinner with his family at 5.30pm most evenings, writes daily emails and runs a coaching practice alongside his day job.

The change wasn’t blocking his calendar, setting boundaries or learning to say no. Instead, it was a simple shift about time itself which once he’d seen, he couldn’t unsee.

Tom’s sharing this shift in a one-off training called Reclaim Your Evening. Join Tom’s newsletter to get the details: https://reclaim.followingfulfilment.com/home

Fire sale auction

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After my first and very successful “I endorse YOU” auction back in December, I haven’t had much luck coming up with an auction offer that really excited my audience. A few of the flops:

#1. An A-Z system for growing your list via newsletter ads, from finding the right newsletters, to getting the lowest rates, to making ~$10 for every new subscriber

#2. The behind-the-scenes info of auctions I’ve been running with partners, plus info on how I’ve gotten each such partner

#3. A penny auction to find out what marketing book I’ve been reading repeatedly this whole year and keeping hidden, because it’s simply too valuable to share publicly

Auction archwizard Travis Sago says that one of the easiest things to auction off is licensing rights to a course, at least if you got a course, and if you got an audience of marketers who want to make money.

Is that right?

I don’t know. My gut feeling is against it but my gut’s failed me many times before. I am willing to put it to the test and find out.

A few days ago, I listened to a podcast about the realities of the book publishing business:

1. Publishers publish a bunch of books, then sell the books to bookstores.

2. If the bookstores cannot sell all the books they bought, they send the books back to the publisher and ask for their money back.

3. In case the publisher is left holding a bunch of books no bookstores wants, they try to recoup at least some of the value. They auction off the books in a kind of fire sale auction to whoever is willing to pay for the lot (or any fraction of the lot).

4. The rest of the books, the ones that cannot be sold via the fire sale auction, are fed into a shredder, chopped up, and then turned into pulp, to recoup at least a few cents on the dollar of value.

With that preamble, lemme ask you:

Would you participate in my fire sale auction?

The offer on auction is the licensing and resell rights my Copy Riddles course, which currently retails for $997.

Would you bid $1 for the right to sell Copy Riddles yourself, forever, and keep every cent of the $997, or whatever you choose to sell it for?

Copy Riddles is the best thing I’ve created. Out of all my courses, books, and trainings, it’s likely to be useful to the greatest number of people. If anything I’ve created outlasts this newsletter, it will be Copy Riddles.

And yet, I haven’t been really selling it.

In part, it’s because I’ve gotten out of the “teach you copywriting” business.

In part, it’s because my list is growing so slowly and the price point of Copy Riddles is so high that it makes little sense for me to promote Copy Riddles regularly, since I have largely tapped out easy demand in my own list.

That said, Copy Riddles has still has brought in ~20k/year over the past few years, which I’ve made by running a creative and exciting promo for just a few days, once a year.

Would you want to sell Copy Riddles yourself? To your own audience or to other people’s audiences?

You’d be free to reposition it, free to repackage it, free to transform it into another format or AI tool or live workshop or audio book, or to break it up into pieces and sell it that way.

Of course, if I were to run this fire sale auction, I’d throw in some bonuses to make the auction offer more unique and exciting and FIRE.

But really, the core offer is Copy Riddles, and your right to sell it in perpetuity and keep all the money.

Would you bid $1 for that?

If you would, hit reply and let me know. Otherwise I’ll start priming my shredder and wood pulper, and try to reclaim at least a few cents of the $997 value.

I predict you will have your birthday in May

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Three things for you today:

#1. Experts make predictions

From Alan Weiss’s book, Million Dollar Consulting:

“Experts make predictions. They don’t fret about whether they’ll be right, they don’t keep score, and then have no regrets. If you’re afraid to make a prediction because you may be wrong, then you’re no expert.”

#2. The best 9-word email

Yesterday I was listening to examples of business owners using variants of Dean Jackson’s 9-word email (“Are you still interested in buying a house in Georgetown”).

All business owners had good results by sending out a 9-word email to their lists. But who had the best result?

A trainer/education provider for dental hygienists in Canada, because…

Apparently dental hygienists in Canada are supposed to have continuing medical education, and they get audited to make sure they are complying with this.

CRUCIAL: The audits all go out on the same day.

The trainer/education provider for dental hygienists simply sent out her 9-word (actually 6-word) email the day after the audits went out. The 6 words were:

“Are you being audited this year?”

Replies (and business) came fast and furious after that.

#3. I predict you will have your birthday in May

And if I am proven right, what better time to clean up all the latent demand from people on your list who have built a relationship with you, and have been meaning to give you money to get your help, but who haven’t gotten around to it?

Your birthday gives you a good “reason why” for creating a unique offer and running an email promo around it.

For bonus points, you can design your offer so it’s not just tied into a unique occasion in your life but tied into a unique occasion in your prospects lives, so they are doubly likely to take you up on your offer and to pay you good money.

Related to that, I have a special offer for you today:

It’s to get my help coming up with a birthday offer and promo for your list next month.

If you’re interested, hit reply and tell me which day in May your birthday is, and we can take it from there.

Want high-quality copywriting clients?

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The best-kept secrets of rich and well-connected copywriters

For years, they’ve privileges, perks, and pleasures beyond the reach of most people in the industry. Now you can too

I’m helping Svet Dimitrov with an offer he’s making available by auction.

Svet, as you might know, is a direct response copywriter who’s currently working as a copy chief for a 7-figure brand. (He worked as a copy chief with a different brand before.) He’s also got a side gig where he mentors copywriters and business owners with their copy.

Svet got his current copy chief role by networking in a hidden, secret, little known online hangout he calls the Golden Group.

Why haven’t copywriters been told about this group?

The Golden Group is a place where DR marketers and business owners hang out. It’s got fewer than 500 members. But to hear Svet tell it, the Golden Group is wildly engaged, and made up of business owners and preposterously high-quality marketers.

(Since Svet he got his copy chief role there by sending a few DMs in the Golden Group, who am I to question the quality of the people inside.)

Right now, Svet is offering to bring you into the Golden Group with him, and to help you get a copywriting client there.

He’s planning to make this offer via auction, with bidding starting at $1.

Specifically, Svet is offering to:

1. Get you into the Golden Group

2. Guide you, down to the behind-the-scenes DM, so you get connections leading to a direct response copywriting client out of the group

3. Copy chief you on the work you deliver for this client, so the client makes money from your copy and so they want to work with you and paying you, month after month after month

4. Guarantee your results — Svet will keep working with you, guiding you, and copy chiefing you, until you make back the entire winning auction bid

Discover the hidden secret to getting fast cash for your copywriting skills

Considering what Svet is really offering here, which is a way to very possibly make tens of thousands of dollars in the next few months, and hundreds of thousands of dollars down the line… and that he’s guaranteeing you will make your money back before he’s done with you… it would be reasonable for him to charge $10k-$15k for this offer up front.

But again, he’s making this available via auction.

Is a high-quality copywriting client something you’d bid $1 for?