Like any rare find especially one that your competitors could unleash against you if they were to get their hands on it, my inclination was to keep this magic gem to myself and file it in my burglar proof safe.

This gem on advertising appeared on Ebay auction for $900 but I purchased my copy for $430. I also have the reprinted version that cost $97.

Why would anyone spend so much money on this book, you might be asking?

The truth is I cannot find enough superlatives to describe this masterpiece on advertising. You can only appreciate this book by investing in your own copy. You won't be disappointed! Apart from Dick Benson's book that I recommended last month, "Breakthrough Advertising" will be the best investment in your marketing education that you're likely to make in 2005.

If you want to learn the art of selling, this book will be the best inventment you'll make as an entrepreneur.

Eugene Schwartz is frank about how he makes his living. He's a mail order copywriter who makes his living by writing persuasive ads that sell. This is his ONLY tool in trade. He does not pretend to be the greatest copywriter and gives credit to others ahead of himself.

What makes this book so special is how Eugene Schwartz takes you through the process of writing sales copy from how to capture desire in your headline based on the state of your market, how to get inside your prospect mind so you can sharpen and target your message to influence optimum desire and belief. You'll also discover six techniques of breakthrough copy that collectively builds and gives structure to ads that shatter tradition and sales records.

When you get this gem of a book on advertising you'll learn from a past master copywriter of hard-sell and soft-sell whose ads could be instantly spotted in any magazine or newspaper with their attention flagging headlines like: "How To Live To Be 100"... "How To Make Anybody Like You", "Smart-Money Secrets", "How To Double Your child's Grades", "I'll Make You amental Wizard..."

Gene Schwartz was writing pay-out copy at the age of twenty-one... became copy chief of one of the largest mail-order agencies in America at twenty four... started his own million-dollar-a-year mail order business at the age of twenty seven.

I cannot recommend this book enough. If you want to learn how to master the art of writing ads and direct response sales letters, put this book at the top of your marketing education list. Read it at least three times a year until the words fade from it's pages!

"In this long-awaited book-destined to become the bible of every copywriter who wants to consistently break records and shatter traditions-he gives you the pith of his understanding of the wordsmith's trade"
.........David Ogilvy

"Breakthrough Advertising" will arm you with the tools that will give an old product a brand-new slant; that will give a competitively battered product a new weapon! You’ll also learn:

1. Mass desire: the force that makes advertising work-and how to
focus it into your product
2. Your prospect’s state of awareness-how to capitalize on it when
your write your headline
3. The sophistication of your market-how to overcome the fact that
other products have been sold to your market before you
4. 38 ways to strengthen your headline-once you have your basic idea
5. How to make an idea grow: the art of creative planning
6. What makes people read, want and believe
7. Thirteen ways to strengthen desire
8. How to build a saleable personality into your product
9. How to verbally prove that your product does what you claim
10. How to destroy alternative ways for your prospect to satisfy his
desire
11. How to borrow conviction for your copy

Finally: I have no direct or indirect interest in any of Eugene’s Schwartz products and my recommendation is based purely on the fact that as an entrepreneur selling products and services for a living the material covered in “Breakthrough Advertising” unlike many other books I’ve read, deals with the “soul” of what advertising and selling is all about.

Final Note: Don’t just read this book… take notes and use it to your advantage.

David
Small Business Resource