Do you know who Earl Nightingale was?

He was one of the early “success pioneers” who devoted his life to helping others succeed.

His most popular work is “The Strangest Secret.”

The theme of which is “you become what you think about.”

That is, according to Earl, the strangest secret in the world for success (or failure).

Well guess what?

This also applies to writing ad copy, too.

Except, when it comes to copywriting, it’s more like:

“You WRITE what you READ about.”

This is so consistently true, it’s almost spooky.

For example:

Sometimes people send me their ads to look over. Usually I delete these emails (if you want me to critique your ads, you gotta pay for it, unless I choose yours for one of my “mob critiques”).

But sometimes, for fun, I take a peek.

Usually what I see ain’t pretty.

I really HATE judging ads — no matter my personal preferences — without seeing test resultz or knowing more about the market.

But some of these are just really, really BAD.

They are simply copying the “HYPE & SCREAM” style of so many Internet sales letters.

With no original thinking attempted.

No “depth” as to what the product will actually DO for people (or how it will do it).

No even trying to establish credibility or build trust.

Dumb.

REAL dumb.

Anyway, these doods are not bad people, by any means.

They are simply victims of the “other” Strangest Secret:

“You write what you read about.”

We ALL do this, too.

We all tend to write what we read about.

And to paraphrase Earl, when it comes to writing ads:

“If we read about crap… we write about crap.”

This is one of the reasons “A List” copywriter Doug D’Anna said (in the interview he did for my book at www.CopywritingGrabBag.com) most copywriters should throw their swipe files away.

Many times they are doing FAR more harm than good.

This is also why I wrote my swipe file report last year.

This baby points you to some of the highest selling ads by some of the best copywriters who ever walked the earth.

Ads that were not only tested on the “kool aid” lists who will buy anything a particular marketer sells.

These ads actually persuade and speak to the skeptic.

You can grab this report free by clicking here.

(Just scroll to the bottom of the page.)

There’s also a free interview on how to USE swipe files there, too.

Ben Settle