Writing

What good will that do you?

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A new subscriber wrote in yesterday to ask:

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How would you start over if you’d lost everything right now? Including your friends and connections that you acquired over the years, only you, your knowledge and your skill.

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I paused at this, because I had recently been thinking about the same question, for my own reasons.

For a moment, I considered writing up my thoughts, and sharing them in an email. But then I asked myself, why?

What good will it do you to know what I would do if I lost everything but MY knowledge, MY skill, and MY good looks?

The fact is, my knowledge (of stuff like marketing principles and tactics) and my skill (in things like copywriting) took years to develop.

The same is true of my mindset, if by that we mean my ability to choose projects… to drive them to the end even when I’m feeling uncertain and dispirited… to tweak my approach and try again when I lay an egg… and to recognize when it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

Because of all this, it would be useless for me to tell you what I would do, unless you have my knowledge and skills and mindset.

(It would also be close to useless if you do have my knowledge and skills and mindset, because in that case you’re prolly not thinking of getting rid of everything you’ve got and starting from zero.)

Here are a few things I think are worth doing in general:

– Selling

– Writing

– Having an audience and maintaining a good relationship with that audience

If you do all three of these on a decent level — not “world class” level, not “so good they can’t ignore you,” simply decent — you will have work and money, as long as work and money are to be had.

Now please just give me a second. Let me go to my closet and dig it out… ah yes, here it is. My favorite hobby horse:

Daily emails.

The fact is, writing a daily email will, bit by bit, get you better at selling, at writing, and in time, even if you do absolutely nothing else, it will build up a small but dedicated audience for you (that’s how it happened for me at least).

Where daily emails will eventually take you, nobody knows. But I’m willing to bet it will be a good destination, better than where you’re at now. Plus, you might even enjoy the journey along the way.

If you want help starting and sticking with the habit of writing daily emails:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

10 things people have copied from me

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1. My “Hello my name is” optin page. (A copywriter I know recently set up a new list and wrote to tell me about it, along with, “I swiped your landing page”)

2. “Announcing” as the subject line to kick off every promo or new offer

3. “Down payment + the rest contingent on success” pricing plans

4. Turning my own current project into a mid-ticket cohort I can sell (I did it with my project of implementing the 1-Person Advertorial Agency program back in May, several people have followed me since)

5. The Most Valuable Email trick (ok, I created a course on that, so little wonder)

6. Using the “Can you do me a favor?” strategy in emails

7. “Bejakovic’s crooked line” (a specific storytelling technique I used in advertorials, which Sam Bradbury-Butler used in his own advertorials and then integrated in his 1-Person Advertorial Agency program, while naming it after me)

8. My personal journaling and notetaking system (ok, I created a course on that too, called Insight Exposed, so little wonder again)

9. “Magic box” CTAs (if you don’t know what those are, then reply and ask)

10. My opening line of copy in emails where the subject line and the body don’t match (you gotta create a bridge)

There’s more, too. I’m possibly the most ripped-off daily emailer south of the Seine and north of the Nile.

Am I bitter about this? You bet your sweet—

No, I’m not bitter. The fact is, few if any of the above ideas are actually mine.

My optin page copy is taken from William Goldman’s Princess Bride. The “announcing” subject line I got from Sean D’Souza who got it from Vic Schwab. The “down payment + rest contingent on success” I picked up from Jeff Walker.

And so on.

All these 10 things people have copied from me I have copied from others as well, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Frankly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Yes, it can be fun to buy and sell secrets and secret opportunities, and that’s part of the game of direct response, both for the customers and the merchants.

At the same time, good ideas are cheap and abundant. You have to apply them, and keep applying them, and not get too distracted by the shiny and the new, in order to achieve success.

The good news is, if you apply and keep applying, success comes. It might take a while, but it comes.

Perhaps you KNOW the value of writing daily emails. Perhaps you even KNOW how to write daily emails.

But in case you’re not actually writing daily emails regularly, and applying that knowledge, I have a service that can help motivate you, keep you accountable, and make your job easier.

For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Don’t write like you talk or write

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I am sitting right now, on a leather couch, on top of a blanket. In front of me is a glass door, through which I can see a green hill on the horizon, a highway with cars and trucks going from left to right, a bridge, and some utility poles.

I am telling you what I can see because I want to activate two neural pathways in your brain.

That first paragraph, with the “green hill” and “blanket,” does something different inside your head than the second paragraph, with its “activate” and “neural pathway.”

I read an interesting article today. You can find it linked below if you are the curious kind. The gist:

In 1953, an English teacher created a list of 2300 essential English words that cover everyday word use, both in speech and writing. The words were intended for teaching students of English as a second language, and cover around 90% of spoken speech and about 80% of written speech.

In 2023, the list was updated. It was expanded (2800 words)… some 1953 words (“butter”) were taken out because they are not common any more… other words that weren’t common in 1953 (“budget”) were put in because they are common now.

The article I read today asked, what changed? What’s different between essential English words in 1953 and 2023?

In short, impersonal and abstract words (“judgment,” “concept”) became more common. On the other hand, concrete and immediate words (“towel,” “wrist”), which stand for things that can be seen, heard, smelled, eaten, worn, smelled, touched, or felt in your body, have become less common.

So what? As the article says:

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This shift matters because abstract and concrete words are processed by our brains in different ways. When you read “axe,” your brain doesn’t just decode letters, it reaches for something: an image, a weight, or a gesture. The word activates both a verbal label and a sensory trace. Psychologists call this dual coding: Concrete words travel through two channels, verbal and sensory; abstract words travel through one. Two channels mean two retrieval pathways, which is why concrete words are “stickier,” easier to hold in a line of thought and faster to recall. Abstract words, on the other hand, are purely verbal, and have to be understood through language alone.

To put it another way: Concrete words are easier for us to process because they are bundled with a web of associations, tactile experiences, and memories that anchor their meaning.

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So don’t write how people talk or write, today, in 2026. Instead, write like they talked and wrote back in 1953, or better yet, in 1853, with more images and concrete verbs and nouns that people can feel or see or touch.

Do this and your words will affect readers more dramatically.

Actually, scratch that. “Affect” and “dramatically” are both new fluff from the 2023 list.

What I meant to say was, your words will amuse, annoy, disgust, needle, offend, puzzle, shame, and tempt readers more. (All those are 1953 verbs that didn’t make it into the expanded 2023 list.)

If you’re curious about the article I read, and the towels and wrists we’ve lost, and the concepts and judgments we’ve gained:

https://pudding.cool/2026/07/essential-words/

How not to forget what matters and even put it to use

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I’m in Bologna this week, sitting around parks, drinking Aperols, eating mortadella sandwiches.

I know. I know. Bear with in my time of trouble.

In the mornings, before this intense laying about begins, I also do a bit of work, which includes opening my inbox and reading 2-3 of the dozens of emails that have piled up over night.

That’s how yesterday I came across an email by a guy named Henrik Karlsson, who wrote on Substack about “How not to forget what matters.”

I want to share Karlsson’s answer with you today, because it’s kind of what everything is about.

Says Karlsson, reading is not enough to make a change that you want to make in your life.

Neither is making a resolution to do so.

Instead, it takes habitual practice and revisiting and resetting to the direction you want to go in.

But how to do that rather than letting it slip away? That’s where Karlsson introduces an interesting practice that dates back a couple thousand years:

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During the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, there spread a practice known as hypomnēmata, a type of notetaking system, used as a tool for meditation, in which the writer would store quotes from books they had read. Each day, often in the morning, the notetaker would open their notebook and look for a passage relevant to something they were struggling with, and then they would meditate on that—unpacking it, making the idea top of mind, ensuring it was alive in them.

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I never before heard about hypomnēmata, but I wrote it down in my own notetaking system, which I have been keeping for years now, with the exact same goal, of not forgetting what matters.

I’ve since built an entire journaling and notetaking system around it, so I don’t just pile up notes, but actually come back to them, and make some use of them instead of just meditating on them.

This system has served me very well over the years, and has saved me hundreds of hours of time I would have wasted otherwise… made me hundreds of thousands of dollars I wouldn’t have made otherwise… and has simply turned me into a healthier, wealthier, wiser Bejako than I might have been otherwise.

I eventually packed up everything I have learned about notetaking and journaling and getting value out of notes into a course I called Insight Exposed. It’s not a course I sell regularly, but earlier this year, Maliha Mannan of The Side Blogger promoted Insight Exposed to her list. In an email with the subject line, “If you buy only one course this year,” Maliha wrote:

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This is the course (called Insight Exposed) in which John literally lays out the secret behind his creative genius. It’s a course on how his writing brain works.

How does he collect ideas? Which ideas does he think are worth collecting? How does he retrieve those ideas when he is writing? How does he connect multiple, seemingly random, ideas to create something new every time he sits down to write an email? And how does he make them so damn persuasive that even complete strangers are moved to give him their attention… and money?

That’s what the course is about: the persuasive writing brain-map of one of the most persuasive writers I know.

A disclaimer is necessary here… See, it is a dense course… as expected of such a course. And I recommend that you take your time going through it. Take notes, and then go through it again (I myself have gone through it thrice in the last few weeks).

But it’s worth the time and effort because I don’t know of many people who are as effectively convincing with their words as John is, and seeing how his brain works will give you ways to be more effective in your own thinking, idea collecting, and writing.

To be clear… this is NOT a how-to-be-a-good-copywriter course.

This is literally a course on how John cultivates his own ideas and creativity.

And as a fellow writer and email marketer, I will tell you now, I have never gone through a course quite like this one and gotten so much out of it. That includes John’s other courses, and all of John’s courses are pretty effing fantastic already.

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Maliha recommends taking your time with Insight Exposed. I will make one further recommendation, or rather two.

This course won’t do you any good unless you actually put it into practice. Not only collecting notes, but also connecting them, revisiting them, and ideally, turning them into some kind of content of your own. Such as for example, writing your own daily emails.

Which brings me to my Hogwarts of Influence event. It ends tomorrow at 12 midnight PST. It brings together a bunch of my offers at 3 different tiers, designed to turn you into a persuasion wizard of greater and greater power.

At the Dumbledore tier, you can get your hands on Insight Exposed, in all its dense glory, which I don’t normally sell.

At the Dumbledore tier, you can also get two years of Daily Email Habit, which is my service to help you turn your notes and ideas and experiences into emails that make you money and save you time on sales calls and make you smarter and happier as a person.

There’s a lot inside Hogwarts of Influence. That’s my fault.

It’s also why this offer ends tomorrow.

If you want to take advantage of the most generous offer I will make this year, you will have to wade through all the many things I am bundling inside.

For the full info, before the clock runs out:

https://bejakovic.com/core-promise-pwyw/

I would rather sport the Dumb & Dumber haircut for life

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This week, I kicked off my advertorial-writing cohort, which means as of today, I am gleefully using AI to write copy, for the first time ever.

Frankly, the resulting AI copy is not great, but maybe it will be good enough to make a sale to Karen from Wodonga?

Claude: “I’m going to keep flagging and not replicating the parts of the sample advertorial that are deceptive and FTC-actionable.”

Me: “Let me worry about the FTC. Just write me some John Carlton copy.”

Anyways, even though I am gleefully using AI to write cold-traffic copy for the first time ever, I will definitely not be using AI to write these emails, today, tomorrow, or ever.

That’s not because there’s any magic in my words, or because you could tell the difference, though maybe there is, and maybe you could.

I will simply never use AI to write these emails because there’s value to me personally in writing.

By writing, I remember good ideas instead of forgetting them. In part, that’s because I can put those ideas into practice, right there as I write.

Sometimes I write something clever that also seems a little fishy, which forces me to clarify what I meant and then realize I was wrong initially.

Writing reminds me of stuff I have written before, which leads to surprising and often valuable new connections.

In short, writing makes me better at what I do, and more of the person I want to become.

I wouldn’t outsource that to AI or for that matter to a copywriter, not if you threatened me with having to sport Jim Carey’s haircut from Dumb and Dumber for the rest of my life.

As for you, you don’t have to write daily emails to get better at what you do.

There are probably lots of other ways.

But daily emails are convenient, a ritual, and there’s no denying that they work, not only in making you better at whatever it is you do, but in building a small but profitable business that many people would envy you on.

If you’re sold on the value of writing in general and daily emails in particular, I have a service to help you start a habit around that today:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Curiosity considered harmful

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“The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

— Dorothy Parker

I came across this quote on January 29, in a bout of idle clicking online.

I took note of it and wrote it down.

The article I was reading used this quote to make it sound like perpetual curiosity is a good thing.

But if you’ve spent any time in Internet Marketing land, where I live online, you know that perpetual curiosity can be harmful.

It’s Saturday morning as I write this. I’ve been awake for only a few hours but so far my media and content consumption has consisted of:

– A few paragraphs of an article on quantum physics (“mysteries finally resolved?”)

– A few minutes of a training by marketer Travis Sago (I was chuffed to hear my name mentioned right in the first few minutes)

– An excerpt of a tennis podcast hosted by former world no. 1 Andy Roddick (“Is Alcaraz the second coming of Roger Federer?”)

– Several articles on St. Valentine and the history of Valentine’s Day (a Roman holiday, rebranded)

– A summary of the book Million Dollar Consulting by Adam Weiss (“sell outcomes not deliverables”)

– Several visits to my Daily Email House community, to see what people have guessed so far in response to a marketing riddle I’ve posted (nobody’s got it yet)

– A half dozen trips to my email inbox, because, you know, maybe somebody’s written me something important? (no)

Point being, I am what you might generously call a curious person, and what you might less generously call a distractible and scatterbrained layabout.

I realized a long time ago that I would starve to death and die alone, by the side of the road, if I just kept following my curiosity wherever it led me.

I also realized a long time ago that people who end up successful in direct marketing are, like me, all opportunity seekers at heart, who have somehow figured out a way to survive in spite of their perpetual opportunity seeking.

Because while there is no cure for curiosity, there is a palliative, and it’s to do something with what you found out, to put it to use.

I wasted much of this morning in idle clicking around and reading stuff that interested me for the moment.

That’s how I spend much of my day, every day, even now, that I am reasonably successful and productive.

I’ve been able to afford myself this luxury because I pay the piper every day, and I do something with at least a tiny portion of all the information I’ve been exposed to.

Specifically, I write a daily email.

Writing a daily email has kept me from starving to death, alone, by the side of the road.

It’s even allowed me to live a comfortable and interesting life.

Interesting both because I’ve been allowed to keep idly following almost every fascinating story and sales page and link that draws my attention…

… and because actually implementing a bit of what I’ve learned, every day, has opened up incredible opportunities and hidden doors, which I never would have known about had I simply stayed in pure curiosity-land.

Writing every day is a great way to do something with all the info you’re seeking out every day.

If you’re not yet writing daily, I highly recommend it.

And if you want my help in putting some structure around your own perpetual curiosity, and getting an email out every day, consistently, in reasonable time, so you quickly can get back to clicking and reading and being fascinated, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

If you have ambitions of copywriting mastery…

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A long time reader and professional copywriter writes in to ask about 1-Person Advertorial Agency, which I claim is the hottest opportunity for copywriters in 2026, and which I’ve been promoting all week:

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John, be honest… is the copy the system spits out for the advertorials any good?

Because compared to your advertorial copy, I don’t know, man.

I looked at the advertorial samples on the sales page, and one of them pretty much reads exactly like AI.

That second-to-last paragraph in the joint pain advertorial especially… it made absolutely no sense.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me being picky.

I just wanted to get your opinion before I consider pulling the trigger.

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Is the copy any good?

I can’t say. I haven’t used the 1-Person Advertorial Agency system myself. But I think the proof is in the pudding.

Does it matter if professional copywriters say it reads like AI?

Or is it more important if it’s making sales to cold traffic, and both the business and the copywriter are making bank?

As for the results of the copy this system produces — the 30% boosts in conversions, the millions of dollars worth of resulting sales, the $49k paychecks — I trust Sam Bradbury-Butler and Thom Benny, the two guys who created this offer. That’s why I’m promoting this to you full-throat.

If you have ambitions of copywriting mastery, I think that’s a noble goal to strive after.

All I will say is it’s much easier to get good as a copywriter if you have successful clients… if you are working on real projects… if you can see sales coming in hourly or minutely… if you have opportunities to test and get results on your tests every day.

Ultimately that’s what this opportunity is about:

Get clients, get results, get paid.

If that’s something that interests you, either so you can take your ample earnings and chill in your ample free time, or so you can take your client relationships and use them to turn yourself into the next Gene Schwartz, here’s where to get at this opportunity, before it closes in a few short days:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorial-agency

What I would do if I won $500 million tomorrow

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A friend of mine recently interviewed at a high-tech company, one that start with N and ends with A and sells AI chips.

He had contacts inside the company who were coaching him on the interview process. Along with the gamut of technical questions, these contacts told him to prepare for some unusual life riddles, such as:

“If you somehow won $500 million tomorrow, what would you do with your life?”

… the right answer apparently being, “I would still work at a high-tech company, preferably one that start with N and ends with A and sells AI chips.”

I asked myself what I would do if I suddenly had 500 million.

I guess if I’ve learned one thing about myself over my life it’s that, regardless of what significant changes occur, including places to live, income levels, or accomplishments achieved, I quickly feel the same.

I used to think that’s a bad thing. Now I just take it as a fact of life, like having a nose.

And so, outside of maybe some initial splurge spending (maybe a pinball machine?), I imagine I’d keep living pretty much as I already do, and doing what I already do.

One thing I’m sure would not change is that I’d keep writing in some form, because I enjoy it.

It’s quite possible I’d keep writing about the same stuff I write about now, because it’s the stuff that interests me personally, and that I think about even when I am not officially “working.”

It’s even possible I’d keep writing this daily email as is, because I already have a significant audience, and I enjoy the validation, feedback, and even impact that I can have when people read and consider what I write.

“Good for you,” I hear you saying. “If big corporations ever start hiring daily email writers, you will be well qualified with your answer.”

Fair enough. Perhaps you don’t feel the same about writing.

Perhaps writing doesn’t come naturally. Perhaps it’s not something you think about during the day. Perhaps it’s something you only are considering because it could be useful for your business, maybe as a stepping stone to your own $500 million Avalon.

That’s fine. In fact, that’s a good thing.

Whether writing is something you truly crave or not, it can be tremendously useful for your business.

And if writing is something you find a bit enjoyable, but also a bit of a chore, then I’ve created a service to make that chore faster and easier and maybe even more fun to complete each day.

For more information on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Will AI replace writing?

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I saw a news headline this morning that read, “Will AI be the basis of many future industrial fortunes, or a net loser?”

I didn’t bother clicking on the link because I knew the answer. The answer is no.

As per Betteridge’s Law, whenever you see a headline that makes a claim and then hedges it with a question mark, the answer is no, because if there were conclusive evidence for a yes, the author would just say so.

My corollary to Betteridge’s Law is that if a headline hedges twice, by making a claim, then the opposite claim, and then a question mark, you know it’s such a murky area that it’s really not worth reading about.

This headline still did some good, because in my mind it tied into a podcast that I listened to recently. The podcast was an interview with an honest-to-goodness presidential speechwriter.

At the end of the interview, the speechwriter was asked about AI and how it’s going to affect his field. He replied:

“I think if you think of writing as a burden, then I get the desire for shortcuts. If you think of writing as an opportunity, as a valuable process that clarifies what you think, that helps you discover new connections, and connect different dots, and challenge your assumptions, and force you to be precise in how you articulate your ideas… why would you want to skip that step?”

Which brings me to my Daily Email Habit service. Daily Email Habit involves a daily prompt to write a daily email, like this one.

The underlying assumption for Daily Email Habit is that there is value in writing, which you cannot get by relying on templates, AI, or even a copywriter who will write in your stead.

So why a prompt?

A prompt reduces the infinite space of possible things to write about into something more manageable. It removes the stress of “What should I write about today?” It focuses the mind and acts as a creative constraint, which is useful even if you’re a creative person.

That’s why some of the testimonials I have on the Daily Email Habit sales page below come from:

– A published novelist and poet (hello James) who certainly has no trouble writing or coming up with ideas
– A game store owner (hello Neil) who hasn’t missed an email in over 730 days (and doesn’t want to, so he subscribes to Daily Email Habit as a kind of insurance)
– The head of partnerships at the Write with AI newsletter, which, ironically, teaches you how to write with AI (hello Zack)

If you’d like to find out exactly what Daily Email Habit looks like, and why the folks above subscribe to it, and if it might be right for you:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Mechanical process for writing a sales letter, book, or New Yorker article

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A traumatic new development in my life:

I’ve lost my Kindle.

I forgot it on the bus at the end of the 12-hour bus ride I wrote about yesterday.

It feels a little like a part of my brain has been cut out. I ordered a new Kindle and will get that part of my brain put back in within a few days.

But until that happens, and on my subsequent bus ride yesterday, I found myself with nothing to read.

So I went into the RSS reader app on my phone (I still use RSS), where I follow a bunch of blogs I don’t remember subscribing to over the past 15 years.

Yesterday, somewhere in the wooded heart of Croatia, halfway from Zagreb to the Adriatic coast, I read an article from one such blog, titled the McPhee method, about the writing process of John McPhee.

I’ve known John McPhee as a Pulitzer-winning nature writer, but I didn’t realize he has also been a long-time contributor to the only magazine I read and have read for years, the New Yorker.

In fact, the article I read about McPhee was written by a guy, James Somers, who also writes for the New Yorker, and who follows the McPhee method himself.

I found the McPhee Method very curious reading because it pretty much describes the process I’ve stumbled upon instinctively when writing sales copy and more recently when writing my new 10 Commandments book.

It’s McPhee’s (and my) fix for the misery of long-form, nonfiction writing. The idea is to replace writing (hard) with the joy of research (fun) and the mule work of organization (mechanical but easy).

If you’re interested in writing something longer and less solipsistic than a daily email, then how John McPhee done it, described in the article below, is worth a read:

https://jsomers.net/blog/the-mcphee-method