Ben Settle

A reader asks:

Hi, Ben!

I was wondering, why do you use a longer line length than pretty much every other copywriter whose email lists I’ve subscribed?

I’m a beginner copywriter with only a couple of months of experience, but I think it was Joe Sugarman who said that a longer line length makes the readers eyes do more work and therefore is inferior to a shorter one.

What do you think of this?

What do I think of it?

I think that 8 or 9 years ago, I distinctly remember some people on twitter blaming me for the sudden rise of emails and tweets that were 100% made up of short, one line paragraphs that everyone nowadays – rightfully – hates, mocks, avoids reading today, even as more and more copywriters keep tripling down on plaguing their lists with them.

But I never once taught doing that with paragraphs.

I am a fan of contrast.

Contrasting sentences, paragraphs, etc.

So if anything, I use varying and contrasting paragraphs in size, shape, length which I first learned from studying emails written by the “High King of Email” himself Matt Furey. But copywriters are, overall, a rather copycat-obsessive & trend-enslaved group that usually miss nuance, and easily fall victim to marketing & copywriting incest.

It is probably why so many fap themselves blind to AI.

And since I’m getting more and more questions like this (I never used to get any, but over last few months I got several) about my longer lines and bigger paragraphs, maybe we can expect to see the rise of wall-of-text tweets – no line breaks or eye relief – from the above copywriters missing the nuance and point on that, too…

If that happens, only question is:

Will I get the credit… or the blame?

I guess time will tell.

In the meantime, to learn about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

Behold…

* Trading Places — especially the scene where Mortimer and Randolph Duke are explaining to Eddy Murphy’s character Billy Ray Valentine how their commodities brokerage firm operates, followed by his reply on what business they are actually in.

* It’s A Wonderful Life — the very beginning when Joseph is giving Clarence his assignment to stop George Bailey from committing suicide, and Joseph snaps at him for wanting to try helping him before getting to know George first: “If you’re going to help a man, you want to know something about him, don’t you?” Copywriters more obsessed with copywriting tricks and persuasion choke holds than they are of the customer they are selling to can get a lot out of that scene alone.

* How the Grinch Stole Christmas — not so much lessons, but inspirational ingenuity of how the Grinch pulled off fleecing an entire town and then rebranding himself right afterwards as some kind of savior of Christmas.

* Eyes Wide Shut — A great example of how information doesn’t change, but the people who consume it change, thereby making the information seem almost new and different over time. This movie has a thick new layer of context in today’s Epstein Island and Diddy news cycle compared to 1999 when it came out and how ineptly marketed it was.

* Miracle on 34th Street — You will find a magnificent example of the power of what I call “market-first vs marketing-first” selling when Kris Kringle tells would-be customers they can get certain toys at better deals at the competition. Today’s typical Needy marketer can’t comprehend this. But customers tend to be more likely to trust you, buy from you, recommend you when you make it obvious you’re legitimately on their side, where you can’t possibly be lying to them or trying to lead the astray.

* A Christmas Carol — I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, but the short version is Scrooge was a moron with his being so cheap he’d eat dollar and crap out a penny, takes credit for things he didn’t do, making his long suffering employee miserable ensuring nothing but mediocrity, and thinking he can buy loyalty and forgiveness. Maybe that shtick works in the stories. But not very likely in the real world.

* Cobra — Stallone’s Lt. Marion “Cobra” Cobretti is the epitome of non-Neediness, which is something marketers are plagued with going by the desperation in their content, emails, sales copy, and social media chest-pounding. Plus, he shows the ideal way to cut up and eat pizza…

Those are a few of my own favorites.

Lots of lessons inside if you are looking for them like it is with all entertainment if done right.

All right that’s it for today.

Have a Merry Christmas.

And if you want to treat yourself to an Email Players newsletter subscription go here:

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Ben Settle

An Email Players subscriber (not sure he wants me naming him) asks about writing fiction:

I’ve been listening to Bandersnatch since you recommended it a few days ago, too… so good, wish I’d followed your recommendation to read it earlier…

My question: You’ve got me thinking about writing a novel.  And I wanted to ask you about your experience with it and approach to it…

Specifically about the “grunt work” that goes on behind the scenes…

I’ve been writing since I was a little kid. Studied it at college. And as a copywriter I write 90 minute scripts regularly. So I understand about doing research, organizing and collating ideas, synthesizing, knowing what I want to say and in what order, etc.

But what I have no idea about is the process of plotting and keeping track of everything, and was interested to hear your approach to it.

Do you plot the whole thing out in advance, and build it brick by brick? Do you use a system for tracking all the elements of the story you want to include? Are all the character backstories and how they might react to certain situations… or the way they speak… written down, or do you just track it in your head?   

Thanks in advance for any insight you can share or any further recommendations you can provide. Even if it’s just to point me to an EP issue where you covered this and I’ve forgotten.

The book Bandersnatch he mentioned is a perfect book for aspiring novelists, imo.

I’ve read it probably half a dozen times so far.

As far as my answer:

I will be writing an Email Players issue about this eventually. But probably not until after my next series of novels are done or at least well under way. This month I was set to write a new one, and nearly wrote two different novels simultaneously since I could not choose which I wanted to go with. But alas… I got sidetracked with trading options and going deep on that instead, using Troy Broussard’s brilliant methodology in our Low Stress Trading bid’niz.

Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow…

For now I will just say:

I have an idea of how I think things will go, and possibly even end.

But I am also far more interested in the characters than the plot at first. As long as I can put the plot into a TV guide-sized summary I’m good. After that I just think about the characters. Sometimes for months or even years or, in some cases, even decades.

But I don’t force things and let them unfold as the story progresses.

The best and most fun part of the process is when everything takes on a life and path of its own and you become just as much a member of the audience as the other readers. My favorite parts of writing the 9th novel in my Enoch Wars series (Serpent Seed) was when suddenly the characters were writing themselves.

I never really understood what that meant until then.

It’s quite surreal when it happens.

And it was one of the most exciting parts of writing I’ve ever experienced.

The key is not to stress about it, or get worried about it, or overthink it. If anything, the less I try to force things, the less I know about the ending, the less I try to create “good writing” the better things turn out and the more great memories I have of the process.

Stephen King says a lot of dumb shyt.

Especially when he starts tweeting.

But one thing I learned from him — a “what not to do” lesson — that has been invaluable is about when he wrote Insomnia. He said he did not think it was all that great because he plotted it out unlike most of his works. And I agree, it just meanders. Like 300 pages of nothing happening that could have been cut out. It reads as if it is anything but tightly plotted even though it was plotted.

Something to think about…

I also don’t buy into the whole “know your ending” shtick.

I’m not saying it is always bad or it’s wrong or not to know it either way.

All I am saying is it can go great whether you know it at first or not. Take book 3 in my Enoch Wars series (Demon Crossfire). I had no clue how it was going to go, I just knew how it’d start. Much of the plot came to me as I was writing and I just let it happen. It looks like it is probably the tightest plotted book of the entire series that looks like I had it all figured out from the start.

But really I did not know jack outside I knew it’d have demons in it.

In fact, with the ending, I was sitting at a stoplight the day before writing that chapter. And I was starting to almost stress about how to end the thing. Then suddenly the idea hit me, along with the car that probably was waiting for me to go when it turned green, as I let the idea I had sink in…That ending then turned into a major plot point for the 5th book, which while I had a general idea what it’d be about, turned into something else altogether and effected all the books after that until the very last chapter of the last book.

Writing is controlled randomness in my opinion.

That said, everyone has their way of doing things, of solving problems, of enjoying the process.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong way.

There is just your way.

I like to think Bukowski’s popularity proves that..

If you’ve read this far this might disappoint you. But probably the only advice I am qualified to give about writing fiction is to turn on your computer, open your word processing app of choice, and type one word at a time until you get to the part where you write “the end.”

$497 course on writing fiction forthcoming…

Just kidding.

Instead, to learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

Last month I lost a customer because, as he said:

“I love the advice and insight, but, as a Canadian, I can’t take the politics.”

On the one hand, I get and understand the impulse, and certainly don’t blame him for high tailing it out of here. I am not, never have been, and never will be everyone’s caesar cocktail. But, on the other hand, if he genuinely loves the info like he said then he’s probably neutering his own success.

For example, if I had his attitude I would never have:

* Learned the best troll monetization tactic I now regularly use (from FDR — who I utterly despise in every way)

* I also would not have benefited from learning some incredible networking & relationship-building approaches that have helped my business (from Obama’s inspiration Saul Alinski)

* And speaking of Obama who I am no fan of either — if I thought like he does, I would not have benefited from or taught an entire Email Players issue about his 2008 email fundraising campaign that took in $600 million (almost a billion in today’s money) in donations with JUST email

* Nor would I have gotten deep into the idea of media stacking I’ve been benefiting from in spades… and that had originally got me interested in co-owning a SaaS company (from William Randolph Hearst — even during his ultra liberal years before the very social causes he championed turned on him)

* Not to mention all the knowledge I’ve learned from studying Steve Jobs or would be using an Apple computer at all

* Plus the incredible insights about persuasion and influence from liberal trial lawyer Gerry Spence’s books — who was so good at his job he was once accused by the opposing lawyer of hypnotizing a jury!

* Frankly, I would not have probably ever experienced the joys of writing horror fiction, or been able to utilize and teach the lessons for copywriting and marketing gained from doing so, if I took the Canadian attitude (Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot was a big inspiration)

Those are just a handful of examples.

I have gone out of my way to learn from many other people I think are as vile and even outright evil as the night is long — Marx, Lenin, Clinton (Hillary and Bill), Stalin, Castro, Lyndon B. Johnson, James Carville, even the reverend Jesse Jackass… and the list goes on and on and on. And have benefited tremendously from doing so by simply taking the good ideas and discarding the bad (and bat shyt) ideas.

Something else:

I’d argue the less you “like” or agree with those you learn from, the better.

Because you are more objective about whatever lesson you learn from them.

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

My new fan here seems to think so:

Ben don’t be rude and disrespectful to Nigerians .

How dare you direct this message to Nigerians like we have to do something extraordinary to get paid for our service . 

Moreover you had the guts to use our situation to sell your dirty program . You should have directed this message to any modafucka looking to get clients and not Nigerians . 

Embarrassing  coming from you and it’s not the fist time you’re putting out this same content .

Do better ! 

The context:

A few days ago, I gave a long, very detailed, and I argue extremely valuable answer in one of my daily emails to a question that was asked by a Nigerian copywriter who was struggling with not getting clients, even though he is putting out lots of valuable content like everyone says to do.

Plus he said, and I quote:

“Some [clients] rejected me plainly because am a Nigerian and not a US citizen. So I feel bad.”

In other words:

The Nigerian stigma was literally in the question he asked.

To leave that detail out just to appease the idiot reply guy above’s insecurities would not only have been a disservice to the readers who deserve full context, but also a sin against the email marketing gods for not using the inherent drama that comes with such a question in my subject line.

As far as using the situation to sell my “dirty program” as he described it?

Don’t mind if I do.

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle

About 14 years ago during the week between Christmas and New Years, I decided I’d had enough of client work.

I was doing a lot of copywriting for others at the time.

But I grew tired of it and wanted to be my own client.

So I sat down during that week and hammered out a detailed plan to build out a business selling info products and supplements to a male health-related niche. The plan heavily involved following what a guy at the time showed me for how he built a $70k per year weight loss business doing literally nothing all day except answering a few customer service questions and playing with his kids.

A $70k business (worth a lot more in 2010 than 2024) may not sound like much.

But his entire operation was:

1. Almost 2,000 articles on various article directories (SEO-driven, no longer viable)

2. Which drove traffic to his opt-in page

3. Then email to sell a $19 eBook via PayPal

And that was it.

That was his entire business: no affiliates, no funnel, no back end sales, no joint ventures, no nothing else but that. And I remember thinking if a total amateur like that could do $70k per year doing almost nothing, imagine what someone who does know copywriting, who does know how to create a back end, and who does understand how to build out a funnel, serve customers, think beyond making 5 sales per day could do?

And so I got to work.

And I spent the next month and a half following his protocols:

* Writing nearly 1,000 key word optimized unique articles for article directories

* Writing nearly 500 key word optimized unique blog posts

* Writing the eBook, the sales page, and a 101-email sequence (overkill in hindsight..)

Plus, I was on retainer with a client at the time writing all their emails, sales pages, webinar scripts, squeeze pages, and other advertising — not to mention writing all my own stuff selling a print newsletter (called The Crypto Marketing Newsletter), daily emails, etc.

That was a lot of writing.

Probably around 3 novels’ worth of writing by sheer volume.

And I distinctly remember getting so little sleep during that month and a half that I was just sort of existing in a haze, like a waking dream state, where I couldn’t tell you anything about my life during that time other than I was just always writing, Writing, WRITING… often only sleeping for an hour or two, and probably putting my health at risk in ways I shudder to think about now.

But I got the work done.

And I then took a much-needed road trip to see my dad.

During that road trip I watched as my little fledgling operation started paying off. I wasn’t making a fortune. But I was starting to get 2 or 3 sales per day of my own little $19 offer coming in, and then increasing to 4 and 5 sales per day, all automated (me doing nothing at that point) and it was looking like it’d keep going up with very little upkeep on my part – going to $100/day to $500/day, etc, which was the plan.

Daddy was pretty proud himself that day.

Then, out of the blue:

Half way through the vacation… Google decided to ‘slap’ article directories.

All my page one content got zapped to page whatever.

The sales all dried up immediately.

And all that work was in vain.

Or was it?

Because a strange thing happened after that.

After all those words and sentences and pages… after all that writing and not sleeping… after all that work and effort… I found sitting down to write just ONE email per day so easy, it was almost laughable. Banging out sales pages took probably half the time, and I was already really fast at it following what later became my Copy Slacker methodology. And what used to sometimes take an hour would be done in 5, 10, maybe 15 minutes — max. To this day, writing “a” email is so simple and routine to me, I genuinely get irritated at and instantly lose all respect for people who whine to me about how hard and inconvenient and frustrating writing just one email per day is for them. Especially when they somehow find the time, creativity, and energy doom scroll and shyt post on social media every day.

I simply can’t relate to those kinds of boys & ghouls.

And it’s one reason I actively try to dissuade people like that from buying anything from me.

I don’t want to hear their stupid lazy “oh woe is me!” nonsense.

Now, fast forward about 5 years later.

I’m sitting at one of the Oceans 4 Masterminds I co-hosted with Andre Chaperon, Ryan Levesque, and Jack Born. And one of the clients at one of the Vegas ones was Mike Lovitch. And during one of the sessions he said his supplement business imposed MORE strict standards and more strict rules on their copywriters than the actual FTC laws required. He said that helped keep them off the radars and less likely to get messed with by the alphabet agencies.

Fast forward a couple more years after that.

I had written a sales letter for a nearly $1,000 book.

And I decided to hire internet marketing attorney and Email Players subscriber Mike Young to review it for compliance. And after getting his review, I implemented everything which, like with Lovitch, meant holding my copy to a higher standard than the government’s rules, only to find that it made all my copy more believable and credible and better.

Anyway, there are many points I am making here.

But mostly I am writing this because I was reminded of these above three situations recently. Specifically, when I read how Mike Tyson used to train so hard as a professional boxer that he considered the fight days themselves to be just “light” workouts. A non-athlete would say that’s because he knocked people out so fast, and the fights were over so quickly.

But it goes beyond that.

And it’s the heavyweight champion of the world of success hacks. It’s also the inner game and approach required to use the info I teach inside the paid Email Players newsletter.

More on that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A cautionary tale for freelancers:

One of my Email Players subscribers (who asked I not name him — although if you know him, I suspect you will see him talking about this soon… if he hasn’t already) wrote some email sequences for a Chinese eCommerce brand purely on commission. He did a great job, increased sales over what they were doing by $100k, and had all the analytics for the 3 months they tested his emails.

In fact, the client admitted he whipped the pants off 6 other agencies who they’d hired prior.

And the deal was, he’d get paid 30% of the increased revenue over what they were doing.

So, in this case, $30k was owed to my Email Players subscriber.

But when it came time to pony up the green stuff?

The clients acted shocked at his invoice. Then they tried negotiating with him with a trick straight out of the low class jackass client playbook. In this case, they wanted to nullify the $30k invoice in exchange for access to 3 massive eCommerce brands the client would personally guarantee my Email Players subscriber would get more copywriting work from.

The answer was, of course, no.

After which the Chinese client asked if there was any way he could compromise, etc.

I suspect you get the gist of where this is going.

Last I checked (about a week ago) he still had not gotten paid. And it is one of many reasons why if you’re a freelancer getting courted by a would-be client from a corner of the world where you have no real legal or other recourse or options to go after them if they turn out to be a bum client like the one above… then get paid 100% up front.

Not just half up front.

But all of it.

If they balk?

There’s plenty of clients in the copywriting sea.

Personally, I always found that a good rule of thumb when doing business with anyone in a jurisdiction where you can’t really go after them for owed money. And, believe it or not, it’s something a few copywriters I know do even with clients in their own countries/jurisdictions.

Even better:

Sell your own offers and be your own client.

You are the one client you can always count on not to leave, forsake, or screw you over.

Something much simpler to do if you have a list and mail it each day.

Especially if you follow and use my paid Email Players newsletter:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Every December, I list off the books I read that year to Email Players subscribers.

Excluding the books I read and didn’t think we’re good or books I re-read, of course.

Usually I put this list in that year’s December issue.

But this year, I am posting the list publicly.

Here goes:

* The Circadian Code — if I had to pick ONE book to hand child Ben for health… it’d be this. I was telling Ken McCarthy a few weeks ago how I believe this to be THE most important book for health ever written in a lot of ways. Willis will be required to read it and I will revisit again.

* Pride & Discipline by Jack Lalanne — lots of insights from the guy who all but created modern fitness industry as we know it, and if you’re the lazy type who needs motivation to exercise this book should turn the trick.

* The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien — If you’re Tolkien fan you will love this book. And if you are a Lord of the Rings fan you will get all new insights into those stories not spelled out, but that are there, “beneath the surface” so to speak. He even has a “what if” scenario about what if Gollum had kept the One Ring or Frodo had learned to use it to control minds? And if you can’t be bothered to read The Silmarillion (too dry for me…) he summarizes the entire history of Middle-Earth in one letter. A bit of a downer, though, how he was always hurting for money, yet his idiot grandkids have made out like bandits whoring his IP out to social activists with Rings of Power, etc.

* Kubrick — Robert Kolker’s bio of the filmmaker. If you like Kubrick’s movies you will probably be mesmerized by this book. If you are indifferent to his work, you’ll probably be bored by it.

* Snow Leopard — the Creepy Joe, Obama, political/media establishment-approved examples are overrated, with disingenuous Ryan Holiday “Trust Me I’m Lying” book vibes that did the same thing. But the overall lessons were spot on, with options for thinking differently.

* Conquistador — about Hernán Cortés’ expedition to Mexico where he saw, raked, and scuttled the human child sacrifices, introduced Jesus, and literally created a brand new race. Not bad for a guy in his low to mid 30’s… I even use him as an example of how to approach business in my upcoming Client-less Copywriter program that will launch later this month.

* Be Useful — Dan Kennedy recommended this book by Arnold Schsarxlkjdbtowartttzneggar. It’s technically a self-help book. But is far MORE than mere self-help. In fact, it was one of those “got to read 10 times” books for me. His naive politics aside, it’s extremely, er, useful to anyone in business, copywriting, email, or marketing.

* Last Action Heroes — lets you relive all your favorite action 80’s action movies from behind-the-scenes. I also scooped up a few extremely useful marketing lessons I have been using and likely be teaching in Email Players in 2025.

* If I Really Wanted To Beat Stress I Would… — I first heard about this book from one of the Scuttlebutt Tapes John Carlton produced back in 2002 or 2003 where he interviewed Gary Halbert about prospering in a rotten economy. I had started re-listening to it last December, and caught Gary’s reference at the end to this book. It’s short, bite-sized, and practical advice for lowering stress.

* Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs In His Own Words — “back room” conversation-style memos, emails, talks, and communications by Steve Jobs. Even if you think Apple is the devil (an argument can be made) you can pull a lot of profitable advice from this book.

* Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power — Thomas Jefferson’s excellent biography. Probably the #1 lesson I drew from this is there really is nothing new under the sun. The same kind of forces fooking with the American experiment today were happening when Jefferson was President. Same crap, different bung holes…

* Rules For Radicals — When I got this book written by Saul Alinski, I was hoping for more violence, extremism, and cheap tricks & nonsense from Obama’s community organizer hero. But alas… no. If anything, the advice inside is very sound, practical, and non-violent. His advice on persuasion and influence is not at all sexy, but it’s powerful — i.e., it’s just having conversations with people, getting to know them, their problems, etc. I think he missed his calling as a network marketer.

* How To Get Rich — Felix Dennis’ book lots of broke goo-roo fanboys fap to, ironically enough. But excellent info if you are in the publishing (info or otherwise) business especially.

* The Right Way To Do Wrong — Dan Kennedy gifted me this short book from Harry Houdini when we first started corresponding by FAX this year. It’s a quick read, and fascinating. It could also help you not be a victim of theft, too… in some ways, it reminds me of the book Gene Schwartz recommended for financial writers “Barbarians At The Gate”, i.e., books that show you how people got away with it.

* Sargon the Magnificent — literally nothing at all useful for business purposes. Very politically incorrect too, as a lot of books written 100 years ago. And it argues the ancient Babylonian King Sargon of Akkad was the Biblical Cain. It’s not all bid’niz around here… sometimes a guy’s interests in the strange and unusual must also be satisfied.

And that goes with something Gene Schwartz also recommended:

Read everything and anything that interests you.

That has always been great advice for copywriters.

And this goes especially for email copywriters.

As far as email goes, to learn about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a question:

… you reference so many different ideas, movies, marketers, items from history and current events – how do you keep track of all your ideas?

Do you have notebooks, notecards, post-its or some physical way of noting things that interest you or that you might use later?  Or a digital system?  Or do you have a phenomenal memory and just track down the movie line, story, or reference when ideas come to you as you’re actually writing?

Love to get a glimpse into how you do it!

No super memory or special system needed.

For over 20 years I have been slavishly adhering to what Gene Schwartz said about reading everything and anything of interest from as wide array of topics as possible. I also like to re-read, re-watch, revisit anything I find especially interesting or potentially relevant whether for now or in the future.

Some stuff sticks, most doesn’t.

But certain bits start to get ingrained in your psychology, and over time you learn how to access it when needed and without even really thinking about it.

It’s the only “app” I’ve ever used.

Something else:

In my experience the best solutions for having more productivity and stronger creativity than the other guy are almost always simple and non-complicated, as well as boring and totally anti-climactic. The more complex and sophisticated the more likely using said solution or app or whatever is simply majoring in the minors.

It reminds me of when I first met Stefania.

She told me about someone’s app for fasting and asked if I’d ever used one.

And I joked:

”yes, it’s called a clock.”

And so it is..

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

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Ben Settle