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SECTION IV
CIRCULATION AND BOOK PROMOTION
LETTERS
When I asked America's leading direct mail copywriters to send me their all-time best letters, the
vast majority chose letters they had created to sell magazine subscriptions or books. Perhaps this
is not surprising since writers are also readers and thus, all have a very special interest in books
and magazines. In addition, magazine and book publishers tend to pay top dollar for direct mail
letters, and copywriters consider such an assignment a real plum.
There's also a tremendous amount of competition in this field. Letters are most frequently mailed
in the millions over a period of time and publishers keep testing to find letters that will beat their
control — the letter that won in previous testing. From nearly 1,000 different circulation and book
promotion letters, I've chosen the "control-beaters" shown in this chapter to demonstrate a variety
of successful techniques that have produced outstanding results.
ORGANIC GARDENING "FIVE MISTAKES" LETTER
Opening a letter with a question often backfires, particularly if the question asked can be
answered in the "wrong" way. But a classic question-asking letter did an outstanding job for
Organic Gardening magazine. The envelope had a picture of a gardener at work and this teaser:
Can you spot the five mistakes here that make
you work more and enjoy your garden less?
The letter inside had a number-keyed line rendering of the envelope photograph with a near
repeat of the envelope teaser and this lead:
If you're working harder and enjoying your garden less . . .
. . . could be, you're making a few common mistakes like our friend
in the color photograph on our outside envelope — mistakes that
may be causing you extra work and added frustration.
Could be. Because one trait that the world's best gardeners have in
common is how little physical labor they actually do.
It's true.
After all, it's not how much you do that leads to garden success, it's
how much you know.
This led into selling copy for a premium booklet, "The Best Gardening Ideas I Know," which was
offered with a trial subscription to Organic Gardening. The letter outlined the five mistakes, one
by one, with a line drawing to illustrate each mistake.
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