MarkFord.net

February 5, 2019 No Comments

If your number one goal in life is getting rich, becoming an author is not a great choice of occupation. The average writer in the USA, according to ZipRecruiter, is $39,179.

To put that in perspective, it’s about $5,000 more than the average income of a garbage collector, but about $12,000 less than the average plumber.

But there are exceptions. And, as my brother-in-law George reminds me every time he visits, it’s always the exception that is interesting.

George likes to start his day with a cup of coffee and the morning paper. He has a curious mind, and he likes to share bits of trivia that he picks up from whatever it is that he’s reading at the moment. So when he’s visiting and we are at the breakfast table, it’s not unusual for him to ask a question that might otherwise seem to have come from the blue.

Today, it was this one: “Who is the author who is worth more than a billion dollars even after giving away $170 million in 2012?”

Now before you throw out the obvious answer, tell me this:

Do you know who Paulo Coelho is?

He’s a Brazilian novelist, musician, and theater director. His first book, published in 1982, had only modest success. But then he took a trip around Spain and chronicled it in The Pilgrimage. And he followed that up with The Alchemist, which was not only a huge international bestseller but the most translated book by a living author. With a net worth topping $500 million, Coelho is near the top of the world’s richest authors.

What about Barbara Taylor Bradford? Do you know who she is?

I’m not familiar with anything she’s written, but I understand that A Woman of Substance, her debut novel (at the age of 46) has sold 35 million copies since it was published in 1979. In addition to 28 additional novels (all bestsellers), Bradford has authored a series of children’s books and a series of interior design books. She’s worth about $300 million.

Or how about Jeffrey Archer?

This English author (and politician) has sold more than 250 million copies of his books internationally. Part of his fame, I have read, came from the fact that he spent 5 years in prison on some charge of “perjury and perverting the court of justice,” which he monetized by writing a series of diaries about the experience. Archer has a net worth of $200 million.

Now – unless you are a student of African literature – I’m almost positive you’ve never heard of David Oyedepo.

A Nigerian author of inspirational books, Oyedepo is his country’s richest cleric. He’s written more than 50 books of his own, and also owns Dominion Publishing House, which publishes faith-based works by other writers. Oyedepo’s net worth is estimated to be about $150 million.

Coelho, Bradford, Archer, and Oyedepo – these super-rich but little known (to the likes of you and me) writers are high up on the net worth totem pole. But most of the spaces at the top are filled by names we know very well:

You know John Grisham…

He has a net worth of $300 million, and he earns an average of $50 million a year – in part because his books are tailor-made to be produced as movies. I’d expect to see him steadily moving up the net-worth list.

And Danielle Steel…

Steel has, without a doubt, the most colorful marital history of her peers. Following a divorce from her wealthy first husband, she had a short marriage to a man who was later convicted of rape, followed by an equally short marriage to a drug addict. And that wasn’t the end of it. She’s been married and divorced at least two more times. Meanwhile, she has written more than 70 bestselling novels… and has a net worth of $385 million.

And Stephen King…

A specialist in the literary genres of horror, fantasy, and suspense, King has written beautifully and successfully for films, too. (He has also written a great book on writing called On Writing.)He has sold more than 350 million copies of his novels around the globe, and has a net worth of more than $400 million.

And James Patterson (who is almost – but not quite – our winner)…

Patterson has sold more than 300 million copies of his books. Most notable is his series featuring Alex Cross, a fictional psychologist and crime solver. He is also known for his campaign to make reading a national priority, and for his support of colleges and universities, school libraries, and independent bookstores. (He has donated millions in grants and scholarships.) Patterson has a net worth of $750 million, and continues to earn about $90 million per year.

So who is the richest author in the world? JK Rowling, of course!

Was Rowling your guess? She was mine. How could she not be?

She is the author of the Harry Potter industry, which began with books and then went on to include movies, games, merchandise, endorsements, and even a 2-part Broadway play. With a net worth of more than $1 billion – even after giving away $170 million of it in 2012 – Rowling currently holds the title. READ MORE

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

Learning, Practicing, and Understanding

December 21, 2018 No Comments

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Delray Beach, FL.- What’s going to be on your list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2019? Do you want to become a masterful writer? Marketer? CEO?

Whatever your goal is, know this: There are four stages in mastering a complex skill: learning, practicing, and understanding.

The first two are intertwined. The last is an achievement.

You cannot practice without some little bit of learning. And you cannot learn without a lot of practice. But the understanding… oh, that’s the wonder!

Let me explain.

For some time now, I’ve been mentoring three young people in the financially valuable skill of writing advertising copy.

Each week, they bring in some piece of copy for me to critique. These are not long pieces. Nor are they complete. They are early drafts of what we call “leads” – headlines and the first 300 to 700 words of copy.

When mentoring copywriters, I like working with leads because they are short and yet they provoke the most important questions about advertising:

For example:

* Does the headline work? Does it hook my attention? Does it make me want to read on with positive expectations?

* Does the rest of the lead introduce an emotionally compelling promise or idea? Does that promise or idea meet the prospect where he is at the moment of reading? Does it build from there? Does it leave the prospect desperate for more?

* What type of lead is being used? A story lead? A secret lead? A promise? An offer? If it is a secret lead, is it followed by a story? If a story leads, is a secret introduced?

The other advantage of using leads for teaching copy is that if their leads are flawed (as they often are), the flaws will typically be the most common mistakes junior copywriters make.

For example:

* Mistaking topics for ideas

* Breaking “the rule of one” – i.e., presenting multiple ideas or making multiple promises

* Making claims without proof

* Writing copy that is generalized and/or vague

I’ve been using this teaching format for decades, and it’s usually good and useful. Smart, hardworking students generally make fast progress. I’m sure there are other ways to teach and learn that are as good or better for individuals. But for me, this is a protocol that has proven to be effective for most people most of the time.

One thing that has surprised me is that there is little to no relationship between a person’s ability to understand a writing principle and his/her ability to put that principle to work.

In fact, I’ve been confounded by how often, after, for example, explaining how a particular headline isn’t working, I will get the same mistake the very next day. And the day after that. And so on.

When I first noticed this many years ago, I assumed the fault was mine. That I had not explained the principle clearly. But repeated and even variant explanations of the same principle did no good.

So was it the student? Was it his fault?

Notes From My Journal

The Importance of Being Earnest

April 26, 2018 No Comments

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Delray Beach, FL – He had accepted the opportunity to become a partner in our Jiu Jitsu studio, but a week after he started he realized he couldn’t do it. He had two other jobs, a sick mother, and a car that seemed to break down every other day.

He wrote a long letter of resignation, apologizing and explaining his decision. Because he felt guilty about breaking his commitment, he made the letter formal and expressed his excuses in a sort of legalese, thinking they would carry more weight.

Before posting it, he read it again. It wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do. It sounded defensive and almost pompous. He tore it up and started from scratch. This time, he wrote from the heart:

Dear Mark,

I fucked up. I should not have said yes to your kind offer so quickly. And now I’m afraid you are going to be really angry, and I don’t blame you. I have to quit this job…

And rather than post it, he walked it in. His hand shook as he handed it to me. I read it. I wasn’t surprised. I suspected he had bitten off more than he could chew.

I didn’t feel anger. I felt compassion. More than that, I was so impressed with the honesty and authenticity of his writing that I offered him a scholarship to take the American Writers & Artists beginners program for copywriting https://www.awai.com.

He went through the program lickety-split. And now he’s working as a part-time copywriting apprentice. My bet is he’ll be making six figures in less than two years. Then he can quit all his other jobs and do Jiu Jitsu for fun.

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

One Thing & Another

March 24, 2018 No Comments

Word for the Wise

Claque (KLAK) – a group hired to applaud; a group of sycophants. Example as used by Charles P. Pierce in an Esquire article titled “Nobody Knows How to Play This Game Anymore”: “The bill passed the House because the Freedom Caucus, that claque of unreconstructed extremists who hold the balance of power there, gave in a little.”

Did You Know…?

Cats spend 66% of their lives sleeping.

From My “Work-in-Progress” Basket

Principles of Wealth: #10 of 61

Wealth is neither absolute nor objective. This is so because those things that we value are by nature relative and subjective.

Your Richard Mille watch cost you $35,000 when you bought it 10 years ago, when the company first came into the public view. It worked no better than a $35 Casio. In fact, it worked considerably worse. You had to have it repaired twice and were charged several thousand dollars to do so. If the value you attached to your watch was pragmatic – keeping time and cost of use over 10 years – you’d feel the money you spent was a hugely foolish mistake.

But the company poured millions into advertising and became a status symbol, particularly among wealthy athletes and rap stars. It also raised its prices considerably. The current range is $250,000 and upwards.

Now you are told you can sell your “vintage, first edition” Richard Mille on the secondary market and walk away with $85,000 in cold cash.

Will you do it? That depends on how much you value its objective qualities of reliability and cost of use versus the subjective qualities of beauty, complexity, and prestige.

He Did What?

Although I haven’t written much advertising these past 20 years, I did more than a bit of it for a 10-year stretch during the 1980s. After that, I coached and mentored copywriters, and between 2000 and 2010 wrote a few books on the subject.

Writing persuasive copy was probably the single strongest money-making skill I had back then. And it accounted for the lion’s share of my earnings. But I was always a little embarrassed to admit that it was my primary job. Today, copywriters are looked upon much like actors were during Elizabethan times: otherwise reproachable lowlifes in possession of commercially valuable talents and abilities.

I do remember when, besieged by such opinion, I look refuge in remembering that one of my favorite writers, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) spent many early years writing copy to make ends meet. And he wasn’t the only one.

Here are some other respectable (and in some cases venerated) folks that worked as copywriters before achieving fame in a non-advertising career:

* Sherwood Anderson, author

* Helen Gurley Brown, former publisher and editor (Cosmopolitan)

* Gary Comer, founder of Lands’ End

* Don DeLillo, author

* F. Scott Fitzgerald, author

* Terry Gilliam, director and animator

* Alec Guinness, actor

* Dashiell Hammett, author

* Hugh Hefner, publisher (Playboy)

* Joseph Heller, author

* Tim Kazurinsky, comedian

* Rick Moranis, actor

* Ogden Nash, poet

* Bob Newhart, comedian and actor

* Salmon Rushdie, author

* Dorothy L. Sayers, author

* Fay Weldon, author

Look at This…

https://www.youtube.com/watch

Miscellaneous Briefs

More on Big Ideas

October 15, 2012 No Comments

A Big Idea, in the information marketing business, must be more than just catchy and suggestive. In other words, information marketers must do more than create David Ogilvy’s idea of a Big Idea.

A Big Idea for Ogilvy was a cowboy smoking a cigarette while perched on a horse. That works for selling cigarettes but it wouldn’t work for selling books and newsletters and other information products. In the world of information publishing, a Big Idea must contain within it an exciting, arresting thought – a thought that directly or indirectly promises something that the prospect desires. It must also be immediately ascertainable, intellectually stirring, and emotionally compelling.

A Big Idea instantly drives the prospect toward a foregone conclusion by evoking a useful emotion. A useful emotion is one that makes the prospect want the product. Many copywriters miss this point. They feel that their job is to arouse any strong emotion in the lead. But if that emotion is not conducive to selling the product, they’ve made their job more difficult.

Miscellaneous Essays

K.I.S.S.

July 5, 2012 No Comments

I had the feeling that Steve didn’t believe me. But I had no idea he would go behind my back to try to prove me wrong.

It was the spring of 1999. Steve had recently been hired by my client to write an investment newsletter. He had the qualifications: an MBA and Ph.D. from good schools, experience both in the front and back rooms of brokerages. But he didn’t want to sell stocks. He wanted to write about them.

When I saw his first effort I was impressed. The analysis was sound. The research was deep. There was only one problem. His writing was terrible.

It wasn’t sloppy or illogical or even ungrammatical. But it was incomprehensible. It read like a treatise. It was the kind of writing that you might get away with in academia but could never pull off in the real world.

I called him into my office and told him about my secret antidote for writing like his: the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test. The FK is a computerized tool that looks at the length of your sentences, how many syllables there are in each word, and other data. It then rates the entire piece in terms of reading ease. A rating of 5.0 or below is very easy to read. A rating of 10.0 or above is very difficult to read. A score between 5.0 and 10.0 is what you’ll find in most newspapers and magazines.

I explained to Steve that my goal is to keep my writing – no matter how complicated the ideas I’m trying to express – at 7.5 or below.

Then we analyzed Steve’s writing. It had an FK of 12.0. Almost off the chart.

“You won’t get a big audience with such a high FK score,” I said. “You have to work on simplifying your writing. Get your FK down to 7.5. You’ll be a better writer, have more readers, and make more money.”

He thanked me for the advice. But, as I said, I could tell he didn’t believe me. What I didn’t find out until years later was that he spent almost two months trying to disprove what I’d told him.

Miscellaneous Essays

How to Enjoy the Writer’s Life — Even If You Can’t Write Like a Professional

April 11, 2012 No Comments

The most productive and, next to JK Rowling, richest writer in the world is James Patterson.

If you don’t recognize the name, he is the author of Don’t Blink and The Postcard Killers, as well as 48 other books that have been bestsellers in the past 10 years.

By almost any measure, Patterson is a hugely successful writer. But he doesn’t have the attributes that one would typically expect: a brilliant mind, a passion for his work, etc.

Miscellaneous Essays

How to Write A Good Headline

January 31, 2012 No Comments

This is about headlines, particularly headlines for materials that sell health supplements, but there are lessons here for every headline writer. The headlines I’m going to quote come from Mike Pavlish, a successful copywriter who claims that they made him “$4 million in royalties.”

Mike correctly says that headlines are critical. He alludes to John Caples, a famous dead copywriter, who claimed that headlines “can pull 19 times more response than another headline with no other change in the copywriting or offer.”

“Without a great headline,” Mike says, “you are like the person who brings a knife to a gunfight – defeated before you even start.”

That said, let’s take a look at 10 of Mike’s headlines that performed very well…