It doesn’t matter whether you’re telling a story to sell, persuade, or entertain – there’s 3 things you always need: A beginning that grabs A middle that keeps An ending that lingers I was reminded of this by a post on the Nieman Storyboard – it’s talking about storytelling in journalism, but the principles of writing something that sticks in the reader’s head well after they’ve finished are pretty...

Procrastination. I’m REALLY good at it. I can put things off for days, weeks or years. You name it, I won’t have done it. Strangely, this doesn’t apply to professional things. I’ve yet to miss a sales letter deadline. Copy is cranked out to a pretty rigid schedule: I work on it in the mornings, when my writing brain is best, and leave the afternoon for smaller tasks. Personal things: sorting out my investments, sewing...

There’s a few people who, it is generally recognised, Know Their Shit. Warren Buffett: when he talks about investing, you listen. Gary Bencivenga: sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods through direct mail copy. Anyone trying to sell anything would pay money to listen to him snore. St Steve of Jobs: whether you love or loathe Apple, there’s no denying that Steve Jobs was a genius in product design and marketing. The...

Been a bit quiet over the last week or so. We’ve been making some changes to the launch plans and that means changes to the JV page, though they’re all for the better. It hangs together far more coherently and presents a far better argument for why you should promote us. I’ll put a link up as soon as it’s live. This JV page isn’t like most JV pages out there. They’re mostly glorified noticeboards. ...

Found some good advice on e-mail management: Managing e-mail realistically It might seem strange, that someone who is an advocate of e-mail marketing is linking you to someone who advocates deleting anything that even looks like a marketing e-mail. In his own words: If I’m likely to care about it, someone I like more than you will tell me about it. But that’s the challenge – be the person that the customer likes more. If...