Ready to rumble.

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by MikePT

I see.

There are any other books as advanced as BA you would recommend on copywriting?

Thanks.

First, MikePT, this isn't about you, so don't take it personally. Your question gives me a chance to rant about.

I'll answer your question with saying I don't know what you mean by advanced, I really don't know what that means to you.

If Breakthrough is advanced, one reason is because Schwartz did not dummy down his book, his intelligence shows through. Maybe Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins or ADWEEK by Joe Sugarman, or maybe John Caples TESTING ADVERTISING METHODS...

But, again, not knowing what advanced means, there could be many others.

I've read every book on Copywriting there is, except for two (those being ones I don't know about)...my opinion is a beginner or unseasoned copy writer should pick out TWO books and stick with those until they have something that worked, that is, they TESTED and SOLD via their copy.

Which two doesn't matter, I would have my students (if I had any) get only two, CASH COPY by Jeffrey Lant and Vic Schwab's HOW TO WRITE A GOOD ADVERTISEMENT.

But any two will do. Why? Because having worked in this field for 40 years, what I've witnessed is CONFUSION by the beginner, trying to follow formulas, getting all the elements in place...in other words they follow the blueprints, or have everything in the copy they THINK they should have, and it doesn't work.

So, here is where I start my RANT.

As a BIZ-OP, a writer can make some decent money learning some skills, and maybe even following one of the many FORMULA/Elements of copy, which are easy to find with a simple google search.

A craftsman can elevate to a high income level.

But most of the books, the good ones, the revered ones by the revered WRITERS have one critical element left out of them.

And this ONE element, they didn't know. Not Halbert, Not Schwartz, not Mel Martin, none of them knew they left this out of their books.

Writing down what you did, step by step, sharing your thought process as you wrote it...

as many of the greats have done...

they just don't realize their own ECCENTRIC genius which appears when they write and we majority just don't have IT.

We can study 127 ad from Schwartz. Read his book, listen to him. But when he sat down to write, and sure, they all had a SOLID FOUNDATION of understanding people and what they wanted them to do, they knew the INTENT of their writing...

But secret helpers from their eccentric genius minds came to their aid. So, maybe they changed a word, a phrase, BEFORE they tested it and it was so unconscious, so deep from within, that we could spend our 10,000 hours writing their copy by hand and still not produce anything that good.

Not to say we can't make some money.

LOTS of money from copywriting doesn't require we do it, we can hire others to do it.

But NO one has to be a great or even good copywriter to make a lot of money selling stuff, I think most would be and wannabee copywriters would do better studying psychology and persuasion, and not wasting so much time on trying to learn the advanced secrets of copy.

KNOW people, understand people, and most 10 year olds can write copy good enough to sell something and make money.

Those who choose to dive in, and spend years and years will probably never reach those rarified heights, because to a person, they would deny they were genius, or that their particular genius came to the surface as they wrote, and so they were unaware of how special they are/were, and in their books, they assume they could teach the numbers and when someone painted them as instructed, they TOO got a Rembrandt, but most got Crayon stick figures posted on the fridge.

Gordon