The top copywriters are as skilled any of the best commercial novelists. For instance, here is a headline that was designed to get people sign up for a financial publication called Government-Driven Investing.
"A Technology So Powerful Saddam Hussein Once Kidnapped the Inventor to Get HIs Hands on It..."
That's not all--this mystery technology is also described this way:
"A Solution So Valuable It Could Save California...And a Company So Profitable it Could Return +257% in the The Next Year Alone!"
Wait, there's more:
"Obscure Norwegian Inventor Creates a 'Perpetual Motion Machine' To Solve the Biggest Crisis of the 21st Century!"
Wow. And the strong storytelling goes on (by the way, I found this written about on a blog called StockGumshoe.com). Here's the Saddam part:
“Iraqi helicopters crossed the border with their guns blazing, dropping their payload of Special Forces and Iraqi Republican Guard squads to secure strategic locations.That same night, the air raid sirens awoke Norwegian inventor, Bjorn Hakken*, from a deep sleep.He quickly learned that this was no drill. And there was no time to waste. He rushed to his laboratory at the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research and began to destroy key documents related to his work.
Saddam’s people were not only looking to take over Kuwait’s oil resources. They were looking for advanced technology. And they knew they could find it at the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research."Kuwaiti forces were vastly outnumbered by the Iraqis. They were quickly overrun. And within just five hours Saddam had seized the country. He soon announced that Kuwait had become the 19th province of Iraq.
And Bjorn Hakken had become a prisoner of war…"
It's a true story but Bjorn Hakken wasn't the scientist's real name. Why use a fake name about a public story? Because if you knew the real name you could research the topic yourself and not have to buy the newsletter to figure out how to invest.
Anyway, the scientist was released and eventually developed his technology which is for taking the salt out of ocean water. And if you paid the newsletter people a lot of money ($497 per year) they would have revealed the name of the company to you. You could also have read about in Forbes magazine, which costs only about $5 a copy, but i'm sure their story was not as thrilling.I'm not suggesting the newsletter is doing anything wrong, by the way, and they offer a full 90 day guarantee but what interests me isn't whether their tips are any good but rather the skill they have in drawing you into a story.
(For friendly guidance on writing your book, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other online and offline retailers.)
