Bob Bly

Would you like to take Copy Riddles off my hands?

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A couple months ago, I stopped selling my flagship course, Copy Riddles.

​​Copy Riddles was based on a Gary Halbert’s advice for how to learn to write bullets — look at the bullets written by the best copywriters, look at the book or course those bullets were selling, and see how the copywriter did his alchemy to transmute lead into gold.

I had various reasons for retiring Copy Riddles. I wrote about one of them in an earlier email. But even if I had no good reasons initially, the fact that I’ve publicly announced that I’m retiring the course means I won’t bring it back.

Frank Sinatra retired in 1971. “I have sung my last song for the public,” he said with a sigh. Fans were shocked. But then, 2 years later, Frank came back with a TV special, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, and he started touring again.

Ol’ Blue Eyes could get away with that, but you won’t see Ol’ Bejako doing it, in spite of several people writing to tell me that not selling Copy Riddles is a crime. I’ve simply found it easier to keep my word as a general life policy.

At the same time, I’m genuinely proud of Copy Riddles as a course, and there are people who say there is significant tonnage to what they’ve learned about copywriting from it.

So a few days ago, while I should have been washing myself but was instead just standing in the shower and thinking, I had an idea.

Could I sell the rights to Copy Riddles to somebody else?

Like I said, I don’t want to be the one selling it to the public any more.

But there’s clearly demand for the course, even with my absolute lack of promotion of the thing. Maybe somebody else would like to own the rights to Copy Riddles and sell it himself or herself.

With the tiniest bit of work, you could get affiliates lined up — for example, I’ve had Derek Johanson of CopyHour promote Copy Riddles in the past. I’ve had Bob Bly agree to promote it right before I decided to retire it. And Daniel Throssell asked to promote it right after I retired it.

If you’ve already got a list of people interested in copywriting, you could sell Copy Riddles to your list directly — the thing regularly brought in 5-figure paydays for me when I re-launched it every few months, and that’s with my small list that had seen the offer a lot.

Plus, maybe you could even run cold traffic straight to the sales page. I can’t say with any certainty it would be a winner, but I did talk to A-list copywriter Lorrie Morgan recently, and she was telling me what a good sales letter I’d written for Copy Riddles. Plus, I wrote it in an impersonal way, to be convincing to somebody who doesn’t know anything about me personally and who hasn’t read any of my emails.

All these are just ideas.

​​I don’t know if anybody is interested in taking Copy Riddles off my hands, or really how this would work. But I am intrigued by the potential.

​​If you are intrigued as well, and if you are serious about the idea of buying the rights for Copy Riddles from me, write me to say so, and we can start a conversation around it.

Do you have an email list in the health space?

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If you have an email list in the health space, then I’d like to talk to you.

I’m starting a new project/email list, something to do with health. I’m looking to get people onto that list, and relatively fast.

So yesterday, I made a list of 10 ideas to do just that.

I got through the first 9 ideas pretty easy, just by thinking about assets I already have or paid traffic channels I would be interested in trying.

But then I paused for a moment. And I thought, “What about my marketing and copywriting list? How could they help me with this project?”

This really should have been my #1 idea. But as we non-native English speakers like to say, better to late than never to happen.

So if you have a health list, then I would like to talk to you and maybe strike some sort of deal.

My offer isn’t fully formed, but some of the options include:

1. You promote my new list for free because you love me so much. (Just kidding. I wouldn’t expect that, nor would I want it.)

2. I pay you for a solo ad or a mention in your newsletter or something like a classified ad.

3. I run a promo to your list where I sell something and I give you all the money I earn, and I just keep the names. (I saw Bob Bly promoting this idea once.)

4. We do some kind of barter. I give you consulting, coaching, or even (gulp) copywriting in exchange for traffic from your list.

5. I give you an IOU. Say you agree to drive people to my list now. In exchange, we could agree that I drive people to your list when I get to 5k people on my list, and then again when I get to 10k or 20k names.

Or really, I’m open to other arrangements if you have something in mind. It will depend on how big and engaged your list is, how you would be willing to help me promote, and how good of a fit I imagine it would be for the project I am starting.

But what about urgency? You gotta have urgency, right? Why should you act now?

I don’t have any urgency for you.

This health project is something I am invested in mentally right now. If anything, it’s urgent for me and not for you.

Maybe you can take advantage of that.

Because the fact is, I will stay open to these kind of deals as long as I continue this health newsletter project. But I might get more selective about who it makes sense for me to do these kinds of deals with, and on what terms.

But that’s all in the future. Right now, I am very, very open to any kind of suggestion or proposal.

So if you have a health list, and you are curious whether we could do some kind of deal together, then write me an email and we can start a conversation.

The Email Player Haters’ Ball

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A few years ago, Ben Settle revealed that he now makes over a million dollars a year from his emails and info products.

Bob Bly has long said how his own, twice-a-week email newsletter, plus collection of $39 ebooks, earns him a healthy 6-figure income to complement his client work.

And last December, it leaked out that Daniel Throssell’s 2021 email income was “significantly higher” than $250k.

So where does that leave me?

I’ll tell you where.

It leaves me on the stage of the Email Player Haters’ Ball, receiving the award for best Email Player Hater. Like Dave Chappelle in his Playa Haters’ Ball skit, I’ll start off my acceptance speech by saying:

“First off, I’d like to thank God Almighty for giving everyone else so much… and me so little. [boos from the crowd] I hate you… I hate you… I don’t even know you, but I hate your guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else but you. [more boos]”

I won’t tell you exactly what I made over the past year from this newsletter. Let’s just say it’s equivalent to a modest salary. It’s certainly much lower than Daniel, Bob, or Ben make from their newsletters.

But in spite of my joke Email Player Hater status, I’m not stressing about my newsletter earnings.

In part, that’s because I tell myself that every blockheaded and self-defeating thing I do with this newsletter serves a deeper purpose. It allows me to stick with it for the long term.

But also, I don’t stress because of something I do instinctively, or rather something I don’t do:

​​I don’t compare myself to others, at least when it comes to business and money.

Over the past six days, I’ve been telling you about the six characteristics of a positive mental attitude. Today it’s time for the last one:

​Self-to-self comparisons.

The idea is that if you want a positive mental attitude… then don’t be a player hater or a player admirer.

​​Don’t look at all the people ahead of you on the great treadmill of life, and don’t stress how they are all the way up there… and you’re all the way back here.

Instead, simply compare where you are right now to where you were yesterday, yestermonth, and yesteryear.
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And that’s it. The end of my 6-part, positive-attitude, let-me-put-you-to-sleep series.

Maybe you feel that was a little abrupt. Maybe you’re even left feeling a little unsatisfied.

After all, self-to-self comparisons might be good. But isn’t there value in looking to others for inspiration?

And didn’t I even say in my email yesterday that it’s good to be inspired by a vision that’s tinted by envy and bitterness?

True.

And that’s not the only confusing and conflicted part of this positive attitude stuff.

The fact is, if keeping a positive mental attitude were easy and simple and direct, then everybody would be doing it, all the time. And everybody would be happy, healthy, and on their way to being successful, all the time.

Of course, that’s not what you see at your local Bed Bath & Beyond.

Having a positive attitude consistently, or at least when it matters, isn’t particularly natural to most people.

The good news is, being aware of what it takes is step one. That’s what you have now.

But it will still take some repetition, practice, and maybe even juggling for this to have any chance to sink into your subconscious. For it to be useful the next time you might be recovering from a bad injury… or learning how to play the tuba… or building out an email-based business.

To help you get that repetition and practice, you can always reread these emails. Or just sign up for my email newsletter, and let me do all the work for you.

Hot opportunity inside

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Today’s email will:

1. Amuse you
2. Tell you something personal and possibly shocking about me
3. Give you a valuable marketing idea you can use right now
4. Outrage you and give you a chance to feel superior
5. Share some saucy gossip about people you might know, at least online
6. Clue you in to a hot opportunity
7. Remind you of something valuable that you probably know but aren’t doing
8. Allow you to feel like you are making progress simply by reading
9. Give you a chance to think differently
10. Provide you with an experience of insight

Confession: Today I had absolutely no clue what to write. So I went back to a big list of good marketing ideas I’ve been collecting for years, and I found the following:

“Shortcut: Write out all the benefits you can think of before seeing the product. Then keep the ones that the product can satisfy.”

That’s from Milt Pierce, who according to according to A-list copywriter Bob Bly, was “the greatest copywriter you never heard of.”

Bob says that Milt was also one of the greatest copywriting teachers of the 20th century, which might be why I’ve heard versions of the above idea from a bunch of other A-list copywriters, including Parris Lampropoulos, Ted Nicholas, and John Carlton.

So for today’s email, I took Milt’s idea, came up with 10 possible benefits, and kept the four I could possibly deliver on.

But you might be wondering how I’ve delivered on #6, “Clue you in to a hot opportunity.”

The fact is, I heard Milt share the above advice in a special program, the “Gene Schwartz Graduate Course on Marketing.” This “Graduate Course” was more like a seminar of top copywriters and marketers, including Parris, Jay Abraham, and Ken McCarthy, going back and forth on the topic of Gene Schwartz and the marketing and copywriting lessons they squeezed out of the man.

The “Gene Schwartz Graduate Course” used to sell for hundreds of dollars. Then for many years, you couldn’t even get it at any price. But today, it’s yours free — well, “free” as in you gotta buy something, for $12.69, but then you get the Gene Schwartz course as a free bonus.

So what do you gotta buy?

If you check my list above, you won’t find “Charm you with a sales pitch” among today’s benefits. So for that, and for the full info on this hot opportunity, take a look below:

https://overdeliverbook.com/

My little-known history as an Amazon ebook hack

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A-list copywriter Bob Bly just sent out an email about the National Emergency Library. I’d heard of this initiative but I didn’t bother to look it up until now.

Turns out, the Internet Archive is scanning books and making them freely available online during the corona situation. That’s the National Emergency Library. To which Mary Rasenberger, director of the Authors Guild, said (and I quote from Bob’s email):

“[It is] no different than any other piracy sites. If you can get anything that you want that’s on Internet Archives for free, why are you going to buy an ebook.”

I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds like the old argument about sex and marriage. Why buy the cow, when there’s an app that hooks you up with free milk, even at 3am.

And yet… plenty of people are still getting married these days. How come? Riddle me that, Mary.

But seriously, here’s a little-known fact about me:

For about a year of my life, I eked a meager living by writing ebooks and selling them through Amazon Kindle publishing. (Don’t search for the books because they were all published under pseudonyms.)

I actually sold thousands of copies of these books — but it didn’t mean much. Kindle ebooks sell for a couple of bucks each.

Thing is, had I known as much about marketing back then as I do now, I wouldn’t have failed or given up on my Kindle publishing dreams.

That’s because selling books on Amazon (or really, on any outside platform) is not a good way to make money. It is, however, a fantastic way to get highly qualified leads who have tried a glass of your milk, and who want more.

That means you can get these folks over to your site and sell them more milk — maybe at a higher price than what Amazon encourages you to charge.

Why stop there though?

If somebody likes you and knows you and trusts you, why limit your offer to a carton or two of milk?

Instead, take your new-found customer by the hand to the back of your property… open the barn door… and introduce her to your gorgeous cow. It might be just the bovine your customer has been looking for all her life.

In other words, if the National Emergency Library, the National Milk Authority, or any other pirate institution starts giving away samples of your money-maker for free, it might not be the end of the world. It might even be the start of something great. As multi-millionaire marketer Joe Sugarman once said:

“Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem & turned it into an opportunity.”

When to accept “touch up” copywriting jobs

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Last week, after a disappointing run-in with my hairdresser, I wrote about 10 additional services copywriters can offer to their clients.

Copywriter Leah Luong wrote in to get some clarification on strategy #8:

“As a newbie copywriter, I really enjoyed this email. At least they don’t make you into meat pies these days! (Sweeney Todd reference).

“I have a question about #8 The Dreaded Touch Up – How do I know if I should take the gig? In what situations should I run for the hills?”

The Dreaded Touch-Up is when the client comes to you and says, “We have this copy… It’s great, just needs to be touched up a bit.”

Like I wrote in that post last week, I normally avoid this kind of job — but there are cases when it makes sense to take it on. And Leah is asking what those cases are.

Before I give you my opinion, let me tell you about the four types of copywriting clients.

This comes from A-list copywriter Bob Bly, who says clients can fall into one of four categories: arrogant, ignorant, both, or neither.

Says Bob, it’s ok to work with arrogant clients. They know just as much or more about marketing as you do.

It’s also ok to work with ignorant clients. They defer to your opinion and let you take the lead.

What’s NOT ok is working with clients who are both arrogant and ignorant. These folks don’t know much about marketing (“This hairball of a sales letter is almost perfect, just needs some jazzing up”) but they are inflexible in their ignorance (“It absolutely shouldn’t take you more than 2 hours MAX to fix this mess up”).

So the first step of the Acceptable Touch-Up is to make sure you’re not dealing with clients who are both ignorant and arrogant.

Which, by default, leaves you with clients who are just ignorant.

Not ignorant in general.

Just ignorant of what needs to be done to fix their existing copy.

That’s why you, as the copywriter, should take charge and set expectations.

So in the case I referred to last week, I looked over the sales letter, and I found the few things — headline, lead, a couple of bullets — that I thought would make the biggest improvement if changed.

And I told the client, “I’ll write a new headline, new lead, and change these bullets for you, all for the reasonable price of whatever. Does that work for you?”

They agreed. So it made sense for me to take the job. And they were happy with the result, because it was exactly what I said I would do.

That’s my best advice when it comes to dealing with the Dreaded Touch-Up.

In case you’ve got other questions about how to deal with copywriting clients in various situations, you might be interested in the following:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book-notification-list/