By Frank Bettger

I first heard about How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling from uber-copywriter John Carlton in one of his interviews about the craft. My ears always perk up when these guys discuss the books that taught them how to be brilliant copywriters. I mean, since I don’t have the 2 grand or more to spend on John’s rare courses, I can at least spend a few bucks on the things that taught him. He mentioned this book as being very valuable to his development as a writer.

Which is funny, because it’s not a book about writing. It’s a book about selling (i.e. persuasion).

Well, you hear often enough that copywriting is:

“Salesmanship in print”

Remember that, and you’ll be way ahead of the game. If you can sell, you can copywrite. In fact, it’s probably more important that being able to write. After all, you just need to write well enough to express yourself the way you would when you sell. You don’t need to be Thomas Pynchon.

Frank Bettger was a contemporary of Dale Carnegie, and he also liked to keep his books short and to the point. This is a very easy read. And that’s a good thing, as you will want to reread it regularly, until it’s second nature.

Each chapter is summed up at the end with a few words, as in the following:

“First sell the appointment. Second, sell your product.”

He was talking about the need to concentrat on getting your foot in the door before even thinking about selling your product. Converted to copywriting talk, that means you need to expend 100% of the first part of your copy in getting the attention of your prospect. Don’t try to sell in the headline. Just capture interest in the headline, enough that they will keep reading to the part where you sell your product. Get their attention.

All of this stuff is readily adaptable to writing. For a few bucks, you can’t go wrong. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t even take John Carlton’s word for it. Take Dale Carnegie’s word:

“I have read every page of this book. I can recommend it with enthusiasm. Talk about walking a mile to get a cigarette—when I started out to sell, I would gladly have walked from Chicago to New York to get a copy of this book, if it had been available.”