‘The Book’ on copywriting and marketing in general was written in 1966. It is the only book I know of that the author was told repeatedly, “I made a million dollars because of your book.” Many times the reader had made several million and almost all of them weren’t copywriters.
I can’t find a single genuine ‘A grade’ copywriter who doesn’t believe this book to beone of the most important books ever written on copywriting.
Sometimes you know when you are reading something profound. When I first read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War,’ I knew that I had peered into the game behind the game. I had the same experience again with Musashi’s ‘Book of Five Rings’ and again with Eli Goldratt’s ‘The Goal.’
The Million Dollar Book’ addressed how to write a headline followed by an ad or sales letter that could shape a new market and get it to buy. Using this formula created advertising breakthroughs. I read it and my head swam. Like the real game of copywriting had been revealed.
You could see the author’s process from beginning to end to create a great promotion. I admit this is not the book for the lazy or those who want to ‘cookie cutter’ ideas and accept mediocre results. It is a book for those people who are willing to work hard to create exceptional results.
This book went out of print and eBay resellers swooped. Used copies sold for $900. I was astounded that people were willing to sell their copy. Thankfully some sanity was restored and the book reissued and entirely worth the (relatively) bargain price on Amazon of $94.95 plus postage and handling.
In case you haven’t guessed, ‘The Book’ is Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz. I would go as far as to divide the entire marketing and copywriting world up this way: People who have read Breakthrough Advertising and people who haven’t.
Breakthrough Advertising flies in the face of conventional copywriting wisdom. Schwartz said “Every new market – every new product – every new advertisement is a fresh new problem that never existed before on the face of the Earth. Past advertising successes – no matter how brilliant – can provide no answers for this new problem. They can only furnish jump-off points, yardstick questions, approximate solutions to lead you in the right direction. The correct solution, the right headline, the perfect ad lies buried in the problem itself. It has never been written before. It cannot be produced by rote, carbon copying or mutations. But it can be sprung to the surface – automatically – by asking the right questions.”
How many copywriters do you know that tell you that everything old is new again and copy writing is all about copying what worked in the past. Get Breakthrough Advertising and deepen your understanding of your
market and how to write a more powerful ad.
Schwartz also wrote a book called The Brilliance Breakthrough. It is so rare that the copy was stolen out of the US Congressional Library. Good luck getting a copy of that one.
