Dramatic Sales Writing

Can writing out sales letters by hand help make you
a better copywriter?

Here's a brief discussion at Michel Fortin's
copywriter's board:

handwriting copywriting

I can tell you that it's not just Gary Halbert who recommends
you write out proven sales letters -- it's almost everybody.
I've read the same advice by Maria Veloso. It's the bullet
on her web site for her course on how to become a world-class
copywriter in 5 hours.

Web Copywriting University by
Maria Veloso

AWAI students know that's copying the Wall Street Journal Two
Young Men letter 3 times is the first exercise they're given --
and it probably discourages a lot of wannabes right from the
start!

Does it etch good copywriting in your brain so that you
write better? Why not? Sounds fairly plausible.

I also believe that there is value in learning how it feels to
write out good copy.

There's a huge gap between how our words look to us
as we're writing them out and how they eventually
appear in print or online. (Yes, email is the one exception
to this.)

So it's good for self-esteem to realize that the words
produced by a famous copywriter originated as words
in ASCII or in a word processor -- just like your own
words.

There's nothing inherently magic in words from a famous
copywriter. They don't appear in print automatically.
The famous copywriter had to swear them out just as
the rest of us do.

I do know that when I was writing fiction, I typed out a
chapter of one of Raymond Chandler's mystery novels,
and that was an eye-opener.

It was fascinating to see the text of a famous book
looking just like the text I produced on my typewriter.

There was no mysterious spell about the length of
the paragraphs.

After all, Gary Halbert recommends that new copywriters
copy a letter a day for at least the first 5 years of their
career.

I will add that, last I heard, Dr. Harlan Kilstein and Kenrick
Cleveland recommend you type instead of hand write, the
letters, saying there is no inherent advantage in hand
writing.

Myself, I've handwritten 3 times the first 10 or 11 letters in the
AWAI book of sales letters that comes with the course. I mean
to do the entire book but I must admit I haven't opened it for
months.

Maybe I should get back to it.

copywriting for catalogs

Definitive Yellow Pages Success Package by Alan J. Saltz


Recently there's been a buzz in the copywriting community
online regarding writing Yellow Pages ads.

Someone on Micheal Fortin's Copywriter's Board started a
thread which soon became the longest one ever in the board's
history.

Ryan Healey, Matt Marshall and Mike Morgan have addressed
writing for Yellow Pages on some of their recent copywriting
calls.

Some copywriters have revealed their tips and techniques
for getting business in this area.

It's clear now that one of the top resources is the
above book by Alan Saltz. He participated in the above
forum thread and obviously knows his stuff.

One question I still have is, how to do this full time
around the year, when most Yellow Pages come out just
once a year -- and have a set deadline.

Still, there're Yellow Pages published around the world --
including English, so you can no doubt solicit work not
only from your local businesses, from any business
that pays for Yellow Pages.

I presume that if you're reading this, you use English.
Well, English is the language of Yellow Pages in many
countries even where most people speak another or
other languages.

How many other types of copywriting do you know of where
your competitor (the Yellow Pages publisher itself)
will hand deliver a list of all your local prospects
right to your door every year?

Yellow Pages copywriting