Why the best copywriter of all time didn’t take a fee…

It was 1972, in Stamford, Connecticut…

And it was a dark, dreary day.

You see:

Struggling entrepreneur, Marty Edelston, was down to his last $3,000.

And, after hiring many direct marketers, and copywriters at the time…

He, and who he hired, just could not figure out a way to finally launch his business.

So, in a desperate attempt…

He made the one phone call that changed the whole trajectory of his entire life.

So who did he call?

The one and only Eugene Schwartz.

Yes, that Eugene Scjwartz.

The one who authored the Bible of modern direct response, Breakthrough Advertising.

And after a short interview with Eugene, Marty gave him his last $3K in an attempt to finally launch his business.

So what happened after that short interview?

Well, Eugene wrote the legendary sales letter (headlined: "Now! Read 300 Business Magazines in 30 Minutes!") that took Boardroom from being a struggling business…

To become the massive behemoth of a direct response publishing house it’s now known as today.

… making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

(They’ve officially rebranded as Bottom-Line Personal now.)?

And you want to know what’s crazy about the whole thing?

It only took him just over 30 minutes to write it while his wife was getting ready before they went out for dinner.

In fact:

During an interview, Eugene admitted to writing that exact sales letter so quickly…?

That he held onto it for a few weeks, just so Marty wouldn’t be upset that he wrote a $3,000 sales letter in only 30 minutes.

Now, remember, this was back in the 1970’s where $3,000 was almost enough to buy a house, and buy you even the nicest sports car at the time.

So why would Marty be willing to pay that much money to old Eugene back then?

Well, Rodale Press paid him just over $50K back in the 1960’s…

For only 4 hours worth of work.

He was that good!

Now, after many years of being hired to write for the best publishing houses, Eugene stopped taking an upfront fee for his work.

Not a single dollar was paid to his name.

Now, why would he do such a thing?

Well, that’s because he has no longer interest in being paid right away for his work…

As he was interested in something else.

… the names on the lists that they were mailing all his promos to.

The way he saw it (which is incredibly smart, by the way) …

Is there’s no point in taking an upfront fee to get paid once, when you could get the names of the buyers off the best lists there were, and…

Get paid for life.

And that he did!

In fact:

He ended up becoming one of the best known art collectors of his time, and lived in a penthouse overlooking Central Park in New York city.

All because he started building his own list, that he himself mailed regularly.

Having a list that you can mail regularly really is that powerful.

And the truth is:

Even you could do the same.

Think about it!

If you already have a decent sized following on any kind of social media platform…

Then you could be sitting on a literal gold mine as of right now.

And best of all:

It doesn’t take many subscribers to change the whole trajectory of your own life.

Many A-List Copywriters were literally nobody’s, that not a single person in the industry even knew their names until they started their own lists.

Ian Stanley, Ben Settle, and Daniel Throssel to name a few.

And that’s exactly why I’m going to be holding a workshop later this week, and revealing the very 5-part strategy I used to launch my own list, and…

Go from not having a list to getting well over a 100 subscribers in less than 3 weeks.

Here’s a sneak peak of what we’ll be covering together:

• Why sending potential subscribers to your featured section is the worst thing to do.

• The New York City “passer-bys” strategy to create the fear of missing out in all your social posts.(This little two-word trick, ex. “I'm in”...)

• A super-sneaky “preppy college girl” secret to increase your subscriber count by as much as 70%.

• The active research method to getting your social media following to create your lead magnets for you.

• Why you should try to force unsubscribes right from the beginning of starting your email list.

• The quick and dirty Cerberus method to write once and have an almost unlimited amount of content already done for you.

• 7 little-known (and almost never thought about) ways to exponentially grow your email list without having to post on social media.

• How using a survey on social media is a waste of your time. (And what you should do instead.)

• The lazy, procrastinator’s trick I used to write a 4,000 word e-book, 12 subject line templates, a 7-part email welcome sequence, 1500 word opt-in page (which acted more like a sales page) and 6 social media posts in a single weekend.

• And much, much more!

Plus, that's just a small taste of what we'll be covering during the workshop I'll be holding this Friday.

So, if you’re interested in either starting an email list, growing, or even relaunching your existing one…?

Then this is for you.

So keep an eye out for all my posts this week, or even head over to my featured section to join my list so you can get an even better deal than anyone else.

Till next week…

From my igloo in Canada,

Pete “let’s make social algorithms a thing of the past” Reginella