Books like The Robert Collier Letter Book

Boring but UsefulThis book is about how to properly write copy, from the perspective of a man who has successfully sold millions of dollars worth of products using these techniques.The Robert Collier Letter book starts with the author outlining the core principles of copywriting:1. The Opening: Get the attention of your target reader by establishing contact with what he's already interested in, and the emotions that he's likely to be preoccupied with.2. The Description and Motive: Once you have the attention, generate interest by showing how your offer can give him something he desires the most - in other words, don't emphasize your product, but paint a picture of how it will help him achieve what he wants. Appeal to emotions, not the intellect.3. The Proof: when it makes sense to do so, offer facts or testimonials which give objective evidence of the truth of what you're saying.4. The Hook: make the offer time-sensitive or limited in some way to spur immediate action, otherwise they will feel inclined to set your letter aside5. The Close: tell the reader exactly what they need to do and how to do it, making it easy to close the saleThe book goes into a great amount of detail on each of these principles. The best thing is that the author doesn't just keep these concepts abstract; he offers literally dozens of examples of letters that he's written - using these principles - that have sold thousands or millions of dollars. Ultimately, this is where the real value of this book is. As you read the dozens and dozens of examples that Robert Collier has put into this book, you will start to see the pattern of what he's doing and how he's applying the principles. What is most fascinating about this is that the same principles apply, regardless of what type of product is being sold. Collier gives examples of how to write copy for selling books, socks, jackets, bags, magazine subscriptions, and more. By showing these examples he proves his point that, to paraphrase, copywriting is not about WHAT you're selling, it's about the IDEA behind what is being sold. You sell ideas, not products.This is definitely a book to be read for the sake of study and not for entertainment. While it's fascinating to read some of Collier's letters and KNOWING that they have brought him a hell of a lot of money, they are extremely boring to read. They all read in a very similar way, which I suppose is good for the sake of copywriters, but it makes it boring to read through over 400 pages of this material. So again, read this book for studying and not for entertainment.My 2 star rating is purely from the standpoint of a reading experience, for the reason that I mentioned above: it became quite the slog to finish this book due to how long it is and how repetitive the content comes across as. I suppose that if I am ever in a situation to write copy and earn money from it, and if using this book as a reference material brings me even 10% as much money as Collier has earned from it, then I'd probably come back to good-ol' Goodreads and update this to be 5 stars.