Once upon a time I wanted to be a screenwriter.
I just thought it’d be neato to write movie scripts.
In fact, I even once wrote a long research paper on how to write a screenplay for an English class (the only time I enjoyed doing an assignment — as I really was doing it for my own education as opposed to getting a good grade.)
Anyway, there’s a cool sales letter lesson in screen plays.
Some call it “the 10 minute rule.”
This means if the first 10 pages of a screen play don’t grab the reader, it not only has no prayer of being made into a movie, but it’ll likely never even make it to a producer or director’s desk at all (and be promptly tossed in the trash).
That means those first 10 pages have to be TOPS.
No slow build up, no messing around.
If you want a shot, you must get. to. the. point!
And you know what?
This rule applies even MORE to sales letters — except, instead of a 10 minute rule… it’s more like a 10 WORD rule. Those first ten words can often times make or break readership when competing against tweets, IM’s, FaceBook updates, emails, yada yada yada).
Point is, ten words is all you get these days.
So use your 10 words wisely.
And don’t mess around with fluff…
Ben Settle
P.S. On a completely unrelated note…
My friend Doberman Dan recently created a product for people who want to become “kitchen table entrepreneurs.”
Dan is the MASTER at doing this.
He knows how to START them (on a shoe string budget), BUILD them real big and then, either enjoy the sales from it, or SELL it for a big chunk of change (someone recently offered to buy one of his little “kitchen table” businesses for a cool million).
Not too shabby.
Anyway, if you’re interested, check out:
