What a great headline, eh?
Oh, by the way, I didn't write it myself. I pinched it from the Herrington Catalog -- one of the great overlooked sources of modern-day world-class copywriting, in my opinion.
In the little picture above you can see a selection of what this looks like in print.
And as of today, here is all the Hemingway-shoes copy, in the Web version of the catalog -- although frankly, Lee Herrington, as great a copywriter as he is (and I do admire him a lot), has more of a knack for selling on the printed page than he does online.
It's still worth reading on his Web site. And if the page is pulled down by the time you read this, here's a PDF of the page as it looked on October 17, 2010.
So why am I making a big deal about Herrington?
Because he is a master practitioner of a dying art, and if you are a connoisseur, a student, and/or a practitioner yourself of copywriting, you would do well to study his work.
That art: Self-disclosure that sells. Taking a passion of yours and turning it into a viable - nay, highly profitable - business, while staying true to who you are. Selling well without selling out!
A warning: He's very persuasive. I've spent hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars over the years buying knick-knacks from his catalog. I was wearing one of them this morning: the sports watch that secretly doubles as a heart-rate monitor.
A disclosure: I'm not an affiliate for his catalog. I'm only a customer, as of today. (Lee, if you're reading this, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be! I would! I would!)
You can sign up to get his catalog in the mail on his main Web site. It's in the style of J. Peterman, but less dashing and grandiose, and more customer-oriented. Yet still with a bravissimo sense of style. When Mario Puzo's Godfather said "All business is personal," maybe he was speaking less about the ugly business of violent crime and more about the way Lee Herrington conducts his affairs.
I know, I know. Not very likely.
But still.
A guy can dream...
David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter