Quote:Dear Fellow Copywriter,

You�ll never amount to a hill of beans.

That�s what my 10th grade biology teacher said when I asked him to sign the scrap of paper saying I was dropping out of high school.

I was 16.

My dad had left us and as the new �man of the house,� I had to scramble to help support my mom and brother.

And so, on a winter�s day in 1968, I walked out of East Central High School for the last time �

� and traded in �homework� for three minimum-wage jobs that barely kept body and soul together.

I was earning a whopping $1.60 per hour.

Hell � I was lucky to have two nickels to rub together. Fortunately, it was around that time that I discovered copywriting.

Now, I wish I could say that once I fell into copywriting, I lived happily ever after. I can�t.

I�d be lying if I did.

Fact is, it was a long road to the top.

And that�s why I�m writing you today �

� So you don�t have to make the same mistakes I made �

� So you don�t waste your time chasing your tail (like I have) �

� So you can LIVE the writer�s life a LOT sooner than I did.

Look, these days I�m living my DREAM LIFE. Most would say I�m successful by almost any standard. I have everything I could ever want � and then some.

And it�s my hope � my conviction � that if you learn the lessons I want to share with you and apply them along with a heaping helping of your own genius, you will one day be as amazed at their remarkable, life-changing power as I am.
See, we�re a lot alike, you and I �

Like you, I had a longing to live the writer�s life.

I wanted FREEDOM. I never wanted to be struggling financially again. I wanted more than enough money to buy the things I really wanted and have the experiences I knew would enrich my life.

I also wanted to make sure my loved ones were ALWAYS well taken care of.

Bottom line: I wanted the power to create my own destiny. Without a boss or a job limiting what I could do, and when.

After all, all I knew growing up was poverty.

I was adopted at birth and my dad, mom, and I lived in a one-bedroom cabin in Minneapolis.

Dad was a divinity student going to seminary and eventually became a Methodist Minister.

God rest his soul, he wasn�t a very good preacher. So, he�d get assigned to all the smaller churches.

If it wasn't for those churches providing us with housing, we�d have been homeless.

It was so bad, each year in junior high, my brother and I were given a �standard issue� of one pair of pants and two shirts. Dad expected that to last us the ENTIRE year!

I hated it. By end of year, I looked real funny because I�d literally grown out of the clothes.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I was in high school when he hung us out to dry. I had to step in and support my mom and brother by working the night shift at a donut shop, part-time at a gas station, and then at a print shop.

It�s those experiences growing up that gave me the burning desire to want to get rich and live the writer�s life.

So � much like you might be doing right now, I studied every book I could lay my hands on to learn direct marketing, advertising, and copywriting �

I still remember those days:

The postman would arrive at 3:00 each day and I�d meet him in the driveway � snatch every direct-mail piece out of his hand � make a beeline for my office � and study those promotions as if they were Holy Writ.

And, sure enough, it wasn�t long before I could design marketing campaigns and write sales copy with the best of them.
Why YOU should care about any of this

I promise you, there�s a VERY good (and practical) reason why you should care.

Let me explain �

I bet dollars to donuts that right now, you�re putting most, if not all, of your energy, focus, and talent into learning the skill of copywriting, right?

No, I�m not a mind reader. That�s exactly what I did back when I got started.

And that was a MISTAKE!

Even though I was getting good � really good at writing copy � I STILL wasn�t living the writer�s life.

In fact, I was working as a staff copywriter at a small L.A. ad agency for a meager $15,000 a year.

In wasn�t until 1979 that I became a freelancer.

Not by choice. I got fired.

My boss at the ad agency had promised me a $20,000 bonus if I brought in $1 million-worth of accounts in a year. But when I did it and asked for my bonus, the bastard fired me.

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