I was surprised—
Yesterday I polled readers as to what books they are reading right now.
The responses came flooding in. Lots of business books. Lots of marketing books. Lots of self-help books.
What surprised me is that out of the several dozen responses I got, fewer than five came from people who said they are reading fiction.
A few days ago, I mentioned how I’ve watched lots of Dan Kennedy seminars about marketing and copywriting, and how Dan will often poll the room about who reads fiction.
A few hands go up, most stay down.
“You gotta read fiction,” says Dan. “Many people make the mistake of thinking we’re in the non-fiction business. Big mistake. We’re in the fiction business.”
So read fiction. Even better, write fiction. Dan did it – a mystery novel. John Carlton did it, too — sci-fi. I guess even Gary Halbert did it, maybe romance.
You don’t have to write a novel or even a short story. An email can be it.
I’ve done it before in this newsletter. Sometimes I was serious about it. Lots of times it was a parody. In every case, it was valuable.
To read the adventures of Bond Jebakovic, secret agent, go here: