I was reminded of a classic direct mail package from someone in my online family this week…and it is related to what I will be up to next week…so I thought it would be worth sharing with you today.
The Easton Press…a legendary mailer (and a subsidiary of MBI, a direct marketer of books, collectibles, figurines and a variety of eclectic offers) had a promotion that hopefully you have seen in your travels for “The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written.”
While the sales letter was outstanding (excerpt below), it is an offer that always bugged me (a little).
Not because Easton Press was a regular user of the lists I managed at Boardroom Inc. (where I cut my teeth in direct marketing).
They mailed our lists A LOT…nothing to be bugged about THAT. 🙂
And I wasn’t bugged because of the value of the content inside the books themselves either. The series included the most beloved volumes ever written.
I was bugged because it was a series of well-known (classic) books in leather-bound editions…which flies in the face of how I devour books.
That is, they were sold as “collectibles” rather than “utilities” (see the P.S. for more about this) …and as someone who read many of the masterpieces in the Easton Press series, mostly in college when I was focused on fiction over non-fiction, I didn’t understand the lure of getting them in leather bound editions.
But what did I know?
It was a huge success…and “books as furniture” is a thing.
Or at least it was.
Then I graduated from college and was “fictioned out” …and I was all non-fiction all the time.
Not completely healthy as I found out decades later (more on that below) …but for a student of direct response marketing, I felt that 100% non-fiction was the only way to go at the time…and it served me well.
And my mentor, Marty Edelston, engrained it into me for which I am indebted to him.
But I did return to fiction once I was established in my career…albeit without Marty’s blessing. 🙁
Marty’s philosophy, which I embraced (until I didn’t):
“Fiction is not worth your time. We don’t need to escape but we always need to learn through business books. And the only way to read non-fiction business books is never to read them cover to cover. There is probably one thought or one chapter in every business book that is worth reading. Putting that into your computer (i.e. your brain), and then sharing it with the world, is the greatest service you can do.”
Note: The “one chapter in every business book that is worth reading” is especially brilliant. That pro tip enabled me to survive my non-fiction library of hundreds of titles.
You can read about how I went about that in “Surviving your library.”
But once I got it in my head that fiction is also a way to learn and not simply escape (which took a while) –by watching the amazing Gene Schwartz read EVERYTHING he could get his hands on—I came full circle.
The clincher was when Gene told me that his voracious reading habit–both non-fiction and fiction– is what made him a great copywriter…and marketer.
Gene’s famous quote then crystallized this notion for me:
“The arts not only imbue our sense of sight, balance, movement, touch and hearing, they also lift our logical minds—the traditional focus of modern education—into the reaches of possibility, invention and genius.”
And by “the arts,” Gene is referring to everything in the world that expands our minds…both fact (i.e. non-fiction)—Gene was an avid reader of scholarly journals and business books like Marty); and fiction (including the visual arts in addition to the written word).
And everything else…even where the line between fact and fiction gets blurred:
Gene’s favorite magazine was The National Enquirer. 🙂
I guess that’s how you become a behavioral psychologist (and world class collector of modern art) from modest roots as a copywriter/marketer.
And in most people’s opinion, Gene was truly a Renaissance Man.
Gene adds to all of this in the preface of his 1966 masterpiece Breakthrough Advertising when he says we are all, first and foremost, “Market-Makers”… and with this quote:
“You cannot lose touch with the people of this country, no matter how successful or potent you are; if you don’t spend at least two hours a week finding out where your market is today, you are finished!”
I not only was taught the value of “reading fiction for business/marketing/copywriting knowledge” from Gene Schwartz but also from the most admired copywriters I have known and learned from over my almost 45 years in the business.
And even from my favorite filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Frank Capra (who I have written about previously and will again).
It took a while to come back around to fiction…and I wouldn’t trade my journey from all fiction to all non-fiction…and ultimately landing on a hybrid approach.
It’s been a fun ride.
Back to the promotion from The Easton Press.
Why did I begin there…and why is it where I want to end this post as a bookend?
It stems from a paragraph from the sales letter for “The Greatest 100 Books Ever Written”:
“For generations, discerning men and women have sought great, personal libraries of fine leather-bound books. For their worth as literature and for their incomparable beauty. Those fortunate enough to acquire such books know the sheer joy of possessing them. They enrich our lives and exalt our senses. They lend distinction to the home. For those acquainted with beautiful books, it is hard to imagine being without them. Acquiring a great, personal library once meant a devotion to rare book shops. The Easton Press has changed that. They publish the foremost collection of leather-bound books available today: The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written. They are extraordinary. These are books worthy of you, your family, and your unstinting pride.”
When my online family member reminded me of this landmark promotion, he also suggested that I would be the best person to create a similar offer for a leather-bound series of “The 100 Greatest Marketing Books Ever Written.”
And while I was flattered that he felt I was most equipped to create such an offer, I told him it would never happen. 🙁
Not because I don’t revere the greatest marketing books…but because I don’t especially care about their “incomparable beauty,” or experiencing the “joy of possessing them” (unless they are hard to find like when Breakthrough Advertising and The Brilliance Breakthrough were “lost classics”…or when a bastardized 5th edition of John Caples’ Tested Advertising Methods was released making the rare 4th edition a must for every marketer’s library).
And even in those cases the emphasis was always on utilizing those texts rather than admiring them. More about that in the P.S.
And the only thing that “lends distinction to my home” is how my wife wants to decorate it.
What the cover looks like, feels like and smells like is irrelevant.
Although I love the smell of leather. 🙂
For me, it’s all about the lessons learned from the 100 plus marketing books that I own…and how to make them applicable, usable, actionable…and most importantly profitable.
And please read the P.S. where I am putting my money where my mouth is based on that premise.
This is where the greatest (non-fiction) marketing books make a radical departure from the greatest fiction.
The greatest fiction work as collectibles.
Great non-fiction?
Not so much.
Let me try to convince you of that in the P.S.
Warmly,
Brian
P.S. Good news!
I will not be selling you a leather-bound copy of Breakthrough Advertising today…or ever. 🙂
But I’d like to persuade you to consider buying a copy of this one-of-a-kind masterpiece…and whether you own a copy or not, to join The Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp (which begins Monday, October 20th).
The Bootcamp is about turning one of the greatest non-fiction books of all time covering copywriting, marketing and most importantly, human behavior from 300 pages between two (non-leather) covers into a utility for the ages.
One question I hear often is, “How does Breakthrough Advertising, a book written in 1966, apply to today’s digital marketing landscape?”
It’s a fair question.
I addressed it initially in the afterword I wrote for the Titans Marketing edition of the book:
Human behavior hasn’t changed since 1966.
Actually, I could plug in any year before 1966 (1066?) and say the same thing.
And while many think this classic book is only about creative, copywriting and direct marketing, it is more importantly about human behavior…how we can predict it and how we need to be immersed in what it takes to understand why people do the things they do at the deepest level.
When Gene wrote the book, there was no Internet, no social media, no mobile phones, no Google Ads.
Honestly, I wish Gene were still around to see the technology we have at our fingertips today.
He would be a kid in a candy store.
(Note: In his honor, we have incorporated everything that is state-of-the-art in marketing today, including all things AI—into the Bootcamp).
This will be our 9th Bootcamp…and the content is cumulative wisdom from the first 8…not one and done.
This Bootcamp is as far from an “in the can” mini-course as it can be.
It is unique and personalized for the audience who shows up.
Gene would also recognize that because the barrier to entry has been lowered so much for marketers, it means his principles work even better today than they did in 1966.
Why?
Because he wasn’t writing about platforms or tools.
He was writing about people…and how they behave in the marketplace.
Technology changes every few months.
Human psychology barely changes at all.
Let me show you what I mean by applying a couple of Gene’s most popular frameworks to today’s marketing.
Levels of Market Sophistication
Schwartz identified five stages that every market moves through, from brand new to completely saturated.
The tools may change, but the stages have not.
Take the AI industry as an example:
- When ChatGPT first launched (Stage 1), there was nothing to compare it to.OpenAI had to say “We exist,” show what they can do and people showed up.
- As competition grew with tools like Claude and Gemini (Stages 2 and 3), the messaging started focusing on benefits and mechanisms such as custom GPTs, faster responses, and searching the web.
- As AI matures and moves into stages 4-5, the messaging will shift to identification. The AI tool you use will begin to say something about YOU.
Knowing where your market is on that sophistication curve determines how you talk to them, whether you are writing emails, ad copy, or social posts.
Now let’s connect this to how you design your funnels and customer journeys using another framework that Gene introduced…
States of Awareness
Gene described five states of awareness, and they map perfectly to the way we build campaigns today:
- Unaware: content that educates and opens the conversation
- Problem Aware: messaging that focuses on the solution
- Solution Aware: content that shows why your approach is different
- Product Aware: copy that builds conviction and trust
- Most Aware: a clear offer and call to action
Inside the Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp, we walk through real examples of current ads that align with each of these states so you can see exactly how to apply the model to your market.
The Bootcamp begins on October 20, and registration is open now.
You can secure your spot here:
https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/ba-bootcamp
And if you are reading this after Monday October 20th, I encourage you to still sign up…grab the recordings of the calls you missed…and I will give you a complimentary registration to the NEXT Bootcamp (in the spring of 2026) so you will eventually get the full experience no matter what.
Also on that page, I share some of the transformations that past Bootcampers have experienced…and why many of them have joined us more than once.
Some even came into the Bootcamp out of guilt that the book was sitting on their shelf collecting dust…with no “incomparable beauty” or “joy of possessing” going on for them.
They wanted to make money with it.
So, I encourage you to click here (whether you decide to sign up or not) to read about some of those marketing breakthroughs.
Everyone loves a good transformation. 🙂