Ben Settle

Once upon a time, I read a book about the late John Hughes.

He was the screenwriter and director for some of my favorite movies back in the 80’s and early 90’s. One guy in the book described Hughes as eccentric, prone to emotional mood swings, brilliant, a genius, and someone who tired of hanging out with the liberals in Hollywood before he dropped out of the game altogether to be a recluse with his family until his death in 2009. He also wrote tons of movie scripts — including some that were never even made into movies, and at least one that was made but was so dumb (the movie “Dumb & Dumber”, ironically…) he didn’t want his name attached to it.

Frankly, he was a writing machine.

And, I have always enjoyed some of his movies.

Especially Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club. and Home Alone.

Incidentally, the late brilliant copywriter Gene Schwartz said every copywriter should watch Home Alone at least 2 or 3 times — something to think about, my little droogie, the next time you’re scrolling through Amazon Prime looking for a movie to watch…

But you know what my favorite thing about him was?

The thing I did not realize until reading this book?

John Hughes was a speed writer.

Apparently, he would write entire scripts in 1-3 days!

One story the director Chris Columbus (who directed Home Alone) said was, John Hughes was a night owl. And he had Chris come over one evening only to get an idea and then disappear for the rest of the night while Chris slept on the couch. In the morning, John woke him up having wrote an entire first draft of a movie script.

Now that’s fast!

And, it’s one of the keys to his success:

Fast writing.

Way too many people in copywriting, email, content-marketing, content publishing, etc spend far too much time writing. They are always trying to get things perfect. Always waiting to be “inspired.” And, always making writing far harder than it needs to be. Screw that sideways. I’m all about fast writing. It’s why my latest novel first draft this month took me just 12 days. It’s why some of my highest performing sales letters were banged out in days (sometimes hours) instead of weeks and months. And, it’s why I can easily churn out emails when needed to sell my products while the mush-cookies afraid to even begin are still waiting around trying to get their swans in a row.

And you know what?

Fast writing is easy when you know what you’re doing.

Enter the July “Email Players” newsletter.

It contains 34 ways to quickly and as painlessly as possible bang out all kinds of content for your business, including:

• Emails
• Social media posts
• Books (non-fiction or fiction)
• Courses
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Articles
• Newsletters
• Membership site content
• Premiums & bonuses
• And any other kind of content you might sell or sell with

But time is getting short to subscribe in time for this issue.

Here’s the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

P.S. I timed it, I originally wrote *this* email in less than 7 minutes.

See?

It works.

Now stop being a donkey and start writing…

The #1 thing that holds people back from creating a smooooothe-as-honey lifestyle, where you can just get up, pound out an email, and be done with your day (if you choose), is…

(Drum roll)

Not having a product to sell.

You can have all the email know-how in the world.

But, if you got nuttin’ to sell, it’s like having a souped-up car without a steering wheel. It’s also the nagging thing that prevents people from subscribing to my “Email Players” newsletter.

And you know what?

That’s unacceptable to a guy like me.

Thus, I have dedicated the entire July “Email Players” issue to listing almost 3 dozens secrets, tips, and methods for banging out all the content you can use to create products, as well as emails, videos, blog posts, bonuses, whatever you need for your business… very quickly and with as little pain as possible, and sometimes in just minutes per day.

Yes, I want to help make your business as successful as possible.

But mostly, it’s pure, unadulterated selfishness.

I want more people to know how to create content so they can create products so they have use of MY product.

So to help me, help you, help ourselves, here’s what to do:

1. Subscribe to the newsletter before the July issue deadline

2. Read the July issue the minute it arrives

3. Implement immediately, then start selling said content using my diabolical ways you’ll learn in the book I send to new subscribers.

Here’s the selfish link to serve my selfish purposes:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Many suns ago, James Altucher wrote an email about 30-day challenges.

Everyone’s got a 30-day challenge these days.

(Even Yours Unruly, in my “Email Skh?ma Playbook” which I send to new “Email Players” subscribers upon subscribing.)

Anyway, it was an interesting list.

A couple of the things on his list I’ll never do.

Like, for example, “live only in Airbnbs for 30 days.”

I’d rather be *waterboarded* than stay in an Airbnb.

But, the list was overall thought-provoking and one of the things he said is perfect for anyone who wants to get faster at writing emails, and be able to pound them out without struggling, squirming, or wriggling in your seat trying to think up ideas.

And, that idea was:

Write down 10 ideas a day for 30 days.

He equates it to exercising your idea muscles, like any other muscle.

And, yes, I completely agree.

In fact, I have been doing something similar — not as part of a challenge, but just as a result of having lots of ideas — for years. I have a folder on my hard drive with some 2,400+ various email ideas/subject lines/themes/offers. Plus, a 255 page document full of Email Players issue ideas and fodder. And, I’m always adding to it. Whenever I am away from my computer and get an idea, I simply whip out my phone and email the idea to myself (yes, I realize there are things like evernote or whatever, but this is what works for me).

The result?

I don’t really worry about what to write about.

I simply open the folder, take a gander, and pick whatever’s interesting.

Anyway, end of PSA.

Of course, ideas don’t equal sales.

The next step is knowing how to turn those ideas into emails.

Enter the “Email Players” newsletter.

It’s pricey, if you are one of these prole-minded types who think they are business people that think in terms of expenses instead of investments when it comes to ongoing business education they can profit from. And it’s for people who have the attention span to read 17 pages per month and *implement*. Amusingly, most people don’t have even that attention span, which is why there’s no real “competition” out there for my boys and ghouls who use my methods.

And the July issue goes to the printer in 5 short days.

The entire issue is packed with ways to create content, including:

• Emails
• Social media posts
• Books (non-fiction or fiction)
• Courses
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Articles
• Newsletters
• Membership site content
• Premiums & bonuses
• And any other kind of content you might sell or sell with

Anyway, here’s where to subscribe to get it in time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

If you’d like to be a proverbial content-creating machine, then smell ye this:

Over the past 12+ months — Yours Self-Aggrandizement has been hard at work (way harder than I wanted to be…) pumping out several hundred page books (or, more accurately, converting entire video courses to books, which I found much more time and labor consuming than just writing the darn things)… hundreds of bonus videos & trainings… “Email Players” newsletter issues & bonus inserts… generation pieces… multiple 20+ page sales letters… literally hundreds of emails for… dozens of special trainings (audio and video and print — for both myself and others)… content for courses… podcast episodes (both my old podcast I ended late last year and the new not-exactly-a-podcast venture I’m going to be launching)… fiction (including an entire novel I banged out the first 12 days of this month)… not to mention special one-shot supplemental reports and offers such as the paid-ad stuff I’ll be testing in the next couple “Email Players” issue… as well as probably dozens of affiliate promos, lots of launch campaigns, and the list drones on and on and on…

Anyway, here’s the reason I bring this up:

I am not entirely sure exactly how much content this all adds up to.

But, I reckon I’ve pumped out the equivalent of probably at least 2 or 3 full-length novel trilogies in the last 12+ months. And, in order to meet many self-imposed tyrannical deadlines, my beady little mind was forced to come up with all kinds of ways — or drew upon ways I’d learned from others who have pumped out lots of content in a short period — to do it all in a fraction of the time it’d normally take.

This is vital because money lurves speed.

In fact, the great Dan Kennedy has said the reason he is the highest paid copywriter on the planet is not because he’s the “best,” but because he’s the fastest — and can do the most projects.

This applies to everything else:

The more content you create (and sell) the more money you should make.

This is easily proven and demonstrated, and is no big mystery.

And guess what?

The upcoming July “Email Players” issue contains 34 of the best way I use to pump out mooney-making content very quickly, and profiting from it from conception until infinity.

By content, I mean, specifically things like:

• Emails
• Social media posts
• Books (non-fiction or fiction)
• Courses
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Articles
• Newsletters
• Membership site content
• Premiums & bonuses
• And any other kind of content you might sell or sell with.

All generated very quickly – and sometimes in just minutes per day.

Originally I was going to expand all this info into an expensive book.

But, I decided to simply “condense” it into a single newsletter issue, instead. And, I suspect just one or two of the tips can radically change almost anyone’s business, sales, and, hopefully, entire approach to creating content.

More:

I’m also including a small present with the issue, too, since July’s my birthday month. Franky, just because the US government stubbornly refuses to honor my birthday as a national holiday doesn’t mean I can’t use it as an excuse to gift my favorite customers.

Anyway, the deadline to get this issue is approaching fast.

To subscribe in time, go here immediately:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Not long ago, a reader asked:

I have an email list of 14,000 plus people which keeps increasing daily. I get barely 10-12% open rates. Now, of course, I’m learning to write better subject lines by going through your material. But other than that, what would you do to keep a healthy open rate consistently in an ever-growing email list?

My answer:

I care less and less about open rates the more I realize and learn – from computer scientist types over the years – how inaccurate they are, unless something has changed I am unaware of.

But, besides that:

The concept of caring about open rates beyond checking your list’s health every now and then makes little sense to me.

It’s like caring more about having the most yards than actual points scored in football.

Or caring more about having the most base hits than runs in baseball.

Or caring more about winning the most popular votes instead of the most electoral college votes in US politics.

Example:

One of my “Email Players” subscribers once told me that, the first month he used the information in the newsletter, the client he writes for had the best month they ever had, and in a month that usually gets very little business.

But, he was still concerned about his lowly 9% open rates…

Again, these open rates worry-warts make little sense to me.

But, to throw a righteous pity bone to the people who are still obsessed with opens anyway, four surefire ways to ratchet them up are:

1. Drive more traffic to your opt-in page so you have more new leads to mail to

2. Get more of your emails delivered

3. Write better subject lines

4. Be someone people want to hear from

So simple.

So easy.

So… elusive to people who treat email like Pac Man or some other arcade game score instead of as a tool to make sales.

As for #1 above, I’ll be talking a lot more about that next month.

#2 is not something I worry much about.

And as for #3 and #4, that’s where the book I give to new “Email Players” subscribers comes in.

You can read more about it here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of the great mysteries of business — at least, to my list, it seems — is pricing. In fact, an oft-asked question I get from “Email Players” subscribers who take advantage of the perk to ask me questions via email is:

“How do I know how to price my products/services?”

It’s a good question, too.

And, completely understandable.

Especially since so many people foolishly market to and always appeal to and care about the thoughts of price shoppers — which is a terrible mistake.

But, here’s the thing:

While that question is entirely dependent on way too many different variables depending on the person, business, market, customer, offer, product, service, timing, brand, status, financial goals, and a million other factors beyond my noble control… there is something I use to “guide” me — like a beacon — when pricing my products.

Doesn’t matter what size ticket, either.

I use it for big ticket and high ticket, medium ticket and any other kind of ticket.

And, I found this guide always keeps me “safe.”

Makes it so only buyers I want enter my world.

And, tends to also make my customers far happier and more likely to refer, buy from my humble self again when given the chance, and in some cases think of me as the only person business in my category, niche, and industry to buy from at all.

Anyway, what is this “guide”, exactly?

That, my Play Thing, is reserved for “Email Players” subscribers’ eyes only.

And, specifically, people subscribed in time for the June issue, where I reveal it in the 3-page “Ravings of an Adman” bonus insert.

But time is short, Pokey.

If you want in, best stop procrastinating and subscribe quick here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Let me tell you about one of the greatest website that ever existed:

“Super Shadow” (dot com)

This was a site that operated for many, many years, by a bloke (or several blokes) pretending to be a guy with direct access to George Lucas, and having inside knowledge of all-things Star Wars.

I used to read it every day for entertainment.

As, it was one of the funniest sites I ever saw.

In fact, I still use the wayback machine site to read it for kicks. It was absolutely hilarious, and even more amusing how so many people really believed it was what it claimed to be.

Anyway, some of the site’s highlights included:

* A picture of Super Shadow’s girlfriend

* The plot to episodes 7 and beyond

* Princess Lea bikini photos

* Interviews with George Lucas (some of the finest infotainment I think I’ve ever seen anywhere, as he made Lucas out to be a greedy billionaire with no neck, bullying fans into spending more money on Star Wars merchandise and tickets to line his pockets as he dated super models and drove sports cars)

* And, of course, the infamous Star Wars plot formula

Despite the satire nature of the site, I found the plot formula Super Shadow had to be not only extremely accurate and detailed… but also extremely helpful later on in business, too.

Here’s what I mean:

The Star Wars plot formula is what made Star Wars tick.

In fact, whenever movies stray from a proven formula they tend to not only do way worse at the box office, but anger fans, and do nothing but waste sometimes years of time and emotional investment in the stories.

(Hat tip to Game of Thrones…)

Anyway, I have found this to be the same in business, too.

This could just be my case, admittedly.

But whenever I’ve created a business plan and business model that works, then strayed from it, tried to get cute & creative with it, or outright betray it… elBenbo’s own box office gross has always suffered.

And it’s no different with the business model I use today.

The more I stick with it, the most my business grows.

The less I stick to it, the more my business shrinks.

I can’t say anyone else will or will not have the same experience. But, I am teaching my business model (“plot formula”) in the June “Email Players” issue. It’s also based on simplicity, sending a lot of emails, and having a lot of offers.

So if you can’t swing those things, it won’t do you any good.

If you can, it could very well add many rupees to your box office gross, too.

The deadline to get this issue in time is tomorrow.

After that, it’ll be too late.

To get it in time, make the jump to light speed here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

The following will seem a bit “counter intuitive” to a lot of people.

And, it’s something that frustrates even my best customers sometimes.

But, there is a method to the madness.

Anyway, here’s the story:

A couple weeks ago, I got this question from a new “Email Players” subscriber:

“I’m a new freelance copywriter, currently working on mastering long form sales copy, and email marketing for clients, I would love to know if you have any courses, or coaching, or book courses, that I can buy? I saw that you have email client horde but I can’t seem to find other courses from you on Google. Weird. Can I have the links to all your courses, book courses like email client horde, and all of them? Would greatly appreciate it”

Now, by all observable variables, this is a great customer.

Serious about succeeding.

And, eager to learn and implement.

But, the only thing I would reply with was:

“Patience, eager one.”

Why would I do this, and not send them a pile of links to all my books, offers, and products, especially when raring to go?

Because of a “law” I follow.

A law that has helped me create what I believe (and I have many testimonials and happy JV partners to back this up) is one of the most responsive email lists in my industry.

It’s also a “law” I teach in the June “Email Players” issue.

Specifically, in the 3-page bonus “Ravings of an Adman” insert.

Although, full disclosure:

The insert is about how I apply this law to pricing my offers, as I have a very specific approach to pricing I rarely see anyone do, much less teach. But, it is also why I don’t do “whole enchilada” offers or even let people buy everything at once in most cases.

Yes, even at the expense of getting many upfront sales.

But, I suspect it gets Yours Crotchety many more overall over time — and that is why I think it has helped me build one of the most responsive lists in my industry. It is also why I will say if you want to know how to approach pricing your offers especially, violate this law at your peril…

The deadline to get this June issue is almost upon you.

If you want it, subscribe at this link today:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Newly minted “Email Players” subscriber Petr The Affiliate shows how I ain’t just whistlin’ dixie in these bloviating emails:

Yo Elbenbo,

this is not really a question, I just wanted to give you props and let you know how excited I am to have finally subscribed to EP. I don’t know what took me so long. I guess I was one of those “some other day soon” types. What finally made me jump off the fence was the previous issue (the one you said you’d never sell again).

To be honest, the only issue I have with your EP and the new Copy Slacker book is that I think it deserves to be printed on higher quality paper than the printing-paper-type it is on and the book deserves some thick hard cover! Seriously, I’ll be putting extra special care not to damage any of these issues or book while re-reading them and I’ll be specially preserving it all, since it deserves to be handed down to my children.

I’ve been truly blown away by the issue I just mentioned earlier. Even though after listening intently to every word of yours since January 2014, I can honestly say that some themes or ideas I had already heard from you before, the fact that now I’m paying for all that just suddenly makes it “click” in place even better. And not just the actual stuff in the issue and book, but in general the whole amalgamation of listening to you for all those years is starting to seep in.

So even though I haven’t actually applied DIRECTLY AS INTENDED any of your info to email or online business (to be perfectly transparent I have no email list and still working on my main offer), I feel as if your advice (that’s not even in the current two issues) is ringing in my ears constantly. I finally was able to perfectly casually sell in person a new client of my side-gig on a higher overall revenue for me and even figured out finally after a year and a half of how to properly sell my employer on giving me a raise!

So thanks, man. Somewhere I heard someone say you’re the “new Gary Halbert” and I think that’s basically true in some ways.

For some reason (must be his name…) he makes me think of the high king Peter from the Narnia books — drawing his sword and preparing to slay the giants, witches, and monsters of his business world.

Whatever the case, I’ve got good news for lads like Petr.

The upcoming June issue should do wonders for helping him and others who struggle with the business structure and business model side of things — especially as he thinks about what kind of offers to send.

I’m obviously biased when I say that.

But so it is.

Here is the link to subscribe to get the June issue before the looming deadline:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle