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The 10 Commandments of Copywriting
Have you ever wondered what the hard-and-fast rules of copywriting are? Wonder no more… Introducing “The 10 Commandments of Copywriting,” which I have now scribbled on digital stone for the benefit of copywriters everywhere. While I was inclined to mimic the language and style of the Bible, I realized by doing so I would be […]
Continue readingSales Letter Surgery
Yesterday I finished a rewrite of a financial sales letter that didn’t pull quite as well as expected. The original version was 3,143 words. The new version is 5,422 words — a 72% increase. Today I finished expanding a fundraising letter from two pages to four. At first, we thought we’d keep it to two […]
Continue readingBig Hitters Still Strike Out
A client hired me to write two different financial packages to be tested to his list. I came up with the most compelling hooks I could… worked on each letter for 3+ weeks… put as much into the letters as I could… and then turned them in. The client loved them. Even the people in […]
Continue readingThe Biology of Risk-Taking
Have you ever wondered what causes booms and busts? Or why some people are naturally better at risk-taking than others? In the new book The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, John Coates examines these questions and the biology that affects our appetite for risk. Coates’s lab is a New York trading floor where individual traders […]
Continue readingIs It Going to Work? And How Can I Make It Better?
I recently retained a patent attorney to help me with a product idea. I hired him for two reasons. First, I needed him to do a patent search for me. I had done some searching on my own and couldn’t find any similar products or patents. But I needed his expertise to determine whether other […]
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