Came a question:
Do you intentionally make your writing difficult to read?
As you know – people say “write at a 3rd grade level”.
I was recently reading a book recommended by Gary Halbert, back in the day, called “The 24-Month Millionaire” about direct response, where he says never use sentences more than 7 words.
So, I kind of have a feeling you intentionally do the opposite, and use massive run on sentences and paragraphs, that kind of actually make it harder to read.
So if I want to read it, I have to kind of invest more, pay closer attention, and stuff like that.
Am I right about this?
Possibly the same as the “ugly sales page” idea.
Not sure, but just thought I’d ask.
My response:
* 12 Month Millionaire guy was selling weenie growing pills.
* Halbert sold primarily to blue collar workers who watched TV all night.
* Gene Schwartz mostly sold to the masses, too.
* Dan Kennedy’s “all dogma is bad” applies far as I am concerned.
To my own list I want readers, not TikTok brain’d customers or people addicted to podcasts or TV shows, YouTube shorts, etc. Readers generally have the mental fortitude to handle more than 7-word sentences or words more than 3 syllables without malfunctioning… including even the occasional run-on sentence.
If they couldn’t I’d never have anyone reading my stuff.
When selling Low Stress Trading to my list, for example:
I take the late, great A-list copywriter Jim Rutz’s attitude when he wrote his monster controls to the finance niche. Especially since we want curated, intelligent customers, not spittle-on-the-carpet biz opp seekers. Rutz said he assumed if they had money to trade with they were probably at least as intelligent than he was and probably even more so, and wrote to them accordingly.
Here’s a tip that is fun to implement:
I think one of the best things anyone who writes sales copy in any form should do is take a couple minutes to read just the first few pages of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
You don’t even have to read the whole book.
He packs his writing with adverbs, passive voice, run-on sentences, and words that copywriters say to avoid yet it’s one of the highest selling and most-read books ever published.
I don’t try to make my writing hard or easy to read.
I only want it to be clear, interesting, and engaging. Even purposely using smaller font – a no-no to designers – can be good. I have read some studies many years ago that doing so can help force people to lean in and pay more attention.
I’ve had that argument with people many times.
Ugly stands out more, and I can tell you this:
When I sent my business partner Broussard my big fat heavy elBenbo Press book back when I first published it, it was physically painful for him to read due to neck injuries. He had to tote that monster-sized book out to his SUV which has a special table set up to read on.
He literally (no exaggeration, he was pissed at me) cursed me out for not making it a PDF.
Yet, of all its customers, he was easily one of the most successful with it, ran with it, and I would argue it was because it was harder to read, not skimmable and digital bytes that blow away like a fart in the wind once closed and lost on a device… that made that possible.
Look at a lot of highly engaged websites:
Reddit, Drudge Report… they look like the arse end of a dead baboon.
Hard to read, not even logically laid out, weird collapsed threads, etc.
I have a sales letter in my swipe file from William F. Buckley for his magazine that is packed with words most people probably have no idea what they mean, each with lots and lots of syllables, but it was 100% “him” and it resonated with his target market.
So I don’t worry about any of this.
I just write.
And I write according not only to how I talk, but also how I think:
i.e., my thought patterns.
The more I do that, the more engaging my stuff tends to be.
Yes, even if/when it breaks lots of rules.
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Ben Settle
