When the Treasury Department teaches their agents how to spot counterfeit money, they do so in a unique fashion. The agents don’t get to see any fake money, instead they spend their time scrutinizing real money. After several weeks of this, the agents are given a counterfeit bill. They instantly know the difference.
When people ask me how they can learn to write copy, I give them this advice. Get a good literature book and read the works of several authors. Get into the flow of the copy. Save your junk mail and read some compelling sales letters. Get into the writer’s head. Take the best of these and copy them longhand… again, getting the feel of the copy.
Writing compelling copy isn’t about having perfect grammar or syntax, it’s about the feel, the heartbeat, the living nature of the copy itself. If it flows, it flows. And when a sales piece flows, sales result!
