Last year in September, I kicked off the third run of Copy Riddles, my program for learning copywriting by practicing bullets.
As part of that September run, I had a little each week for the best bullet. Anybody who wanted to could send me their bullets. The winner got a prize, usually a book on marketing and copywriting.
(The contest has since been shuttered, since I spun off a complete coaching program to go with Copy Riddles.)
Anyways, the very first week and the very first contest, out of something like fifty submissions, the winner was Rafa Casas, a Spanish-speaking and Spanish-writing copywriter.
Rafa’s first bullet won because it was so simple and promised such a clear and desirable benefit.
But Rafa kept submitting bullets for later bullet contests (no dice, you can only win once). Still, he had such clever and persuasive ideas that I was sure he will be a big success soon.
And it seems to be happening.
Rafa is now writing copy for a number of clients in Spain.
He’s also offering his own email copywriting coaching to a few clients, based on his experiences writing two daily email newsletters.
And from what I understand, he recently won some kind of fancy award in Spain, recognizing his wizard-like copywriting skills.
Put all this together, and I think it qualifies Rafa as an A-lister in the Spanish copywriting world.
And if you wonder whether Rafa really has the hard results to back up being called an A-lister… then I’ll tell you that copywriting stardom is more about endorsements, legend, and mental shortcuts than it is about results.
That’s something to ponder if you yourself have aspirations to become an A-list copywriter.
But back to the indecent proposal I promised you in my subject line. A few days ago, Rafa sent me the following email:
It turns out that this afternoon while I was waiting for my daughter to do her yoga class, I read, as I always do every Thursday afternoon with a coffee, the book I always read while I´m waiting for her: The 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters, and I have come up with a business with which we will not become millionaires (not for now) but it will not cost us money either.
What do you think if I translate your book into Spanish and we try to sell it to the Spanish-speaking world as well?
Of course I wouldn’t charge you anything for doing it, well not in money at least. The idea is that while I translate it and we try to sell it, I can learn from you the strategy that we implement to sell it, for example.
Immediately upon reading Rafa’s message, I drifted off into a pleasant fantasy. I saw myself being interviewed on CNN, with all the different translations of my book on a shelf behind me.
“So Bejako,” the CNN anchorwoman asked me, “what can you tell us, as an internationally read copywriting expert whose books have been translated into multiple languages, about the recent news of monkey pox? Is this something to worry about? Is washing our hands with soap enough? And are there influence and persuasion principles we can learn from this?”
My dream balloon popped. I fell back to reality.
I realized was that Rafa’s proposal was indecent. But only in the original sense of that word, meaning not suitable or fitting.
Because while I would love to have a Spanish-language version of my book, it’s probably not worth Rafa’s time to translate it. Either for the money we could make together, or for the learning experience of how I might promote that book.
My feeling on these Kindle books is that they are valuable for credibility and as lead magnets.
They siphon people from Amazon into your world. They sit there, more or less passively, and do their work. In my experience, most of their value comes without any added promotion, outside of some very basic Amazon ads and occasional mentions in this newsletter.
Maybe you think that’s a cavalier attitude about promotion for somebody who calls himself a marketer.
Perhaps. But perhaps it’s about the best use of your time.
So in case I haven’t piled on the value in this email sufficiently, I will give you one last practical tidbit. It comes from James Altucher.
James is an interesting and quirky Internet personality. He has written and published 20 books, both fiction and non-fiction. And he’s doing something right, because he has amassed a huge audience… sold truckloads of books… and even had a WSJ bestseller with a book he self-published.
Here’s the book-marketing tidbit. James asks:
What’s the best way to promote your first book?
Simple.
Write your second book.
That’s what I’m planning to do to promote my 10 Commandments book. Along with, of course, occasional mentions in this email newsletter.
So if you don’t have a copy of the 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters… and you want to find out why a star in the Spanish copywriting sky like Rafa might want to read this book every Thursday afternoon… then take a look below: