A few months ago I sold my car to my oldest son.

When we went to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), I had to
stand in line for more than 2 hours.

It gave me an idea to film a documentary about the DMV which I
would title “Village of the Damned.”

If evil people are in fact sent to Hell, I envision that it is
not a burning inferno — but rather a DMV where you stand in a
line that never moves … forever.

But it’s not just the motorists who are tortured at the DMV. It’s
also the workers.

The clerk who served me said, “We have had huge lines the entire
day.”

I asked, “Is that unusual?”

She replied, “No, the lines are huge the whole day every day.”

And to serve the people in line, they perform the same
mind-numbing rote tasks over and over, again and again.

To me — and I am guessing to you do — this would be pure
purgatory.

Above all else, it is boring beyond description.

And — rightly or wrongly — I have designed my life, above all
else, to avoid jobs and tasks that bore me.

I hate being bored more than almost anything else. Boredom is my
kryptonite.

Other than the health and happiness of my family, and helping my
clients achieve their goals, avoiding boredom has been the
driving force of my life.

For instance:

>> I don’t volunteer for committees; I find them a thundering
bore and an enormous time-suck.

>> I don’t do household repair or chores. I hire people to do
them for us. Assembling a piece of store-bought furniture can
quickly put me into a coma. I hire Larry the handyman instead.

>> I have a full-time employee, a CPA, and a bookkeeper who
handle the administrative tasks and paperwork of my business —
freeing me to devote almost all of my time to my core activity of
writing.

>> I don’t take on projects that bore me or even those that don’t
excite me, because I write my best copy when I am enthusiastic
about the client, the product, and the project.

Now, I admit some of you might find my behavior selfish or even
repugnant in its selfishness.

But as Popeye says, I am what I am. And I am a guy whose
nightmare is being bored at work, at social gatherings, and at
all other times.

That’s why I became a writer: I love writing, thinking, research,
reading, and books to an extreme.

And if that makes me a bad person, I can live with that. Although
I actually do not think it does make me a bad person.

In fact, I strive to be a good person, and I think I achieve that
for the majority of my activities and relationships.

Some of my subscribers may agree and others not. You can’t please
everybody.

There is a lot of debate today as to whether going to college is
still worth the effort and investment … or is now a complete
waste of time and money.

For an accurate analysis, I believe the experience of college
life as well as participation in extracurricular activities must
be factored in along with the value of the classroom education
and degree obtained.

An article in my alumni magazine Rochester Review (8/17, p. 13)
states:

“[For] students who spend 4 years at elite, residential
universities, what they learn from immersion in activities
outside of the classroom can be as important as what happens in
it.”

People who find college archaic, unnecessary, or indulgent may
laugh at this claim.

But for me, it was absolutely true.

When I went to the University of Rochester in the 1970s, I got
two educations for the price of one.

The first was my BS in chemical engineering.

This is what I paid tuition for and spent 4 years of study at the
University of Rochester (UR) to learn and earn.

And having a STEM (science, engineering, technology, math) degree
— and the knowledge one acquired to get it — was then, as it is
today, a good investment.

The second was the education I got as a writer.

I was both the editor of the monthly college literary magazine
and the features editor of the daily college newspaper.

When I entered the UR, I didn’t even know they had a campus
newspaper, much less a daily one.

Turns out, the paper was daily. Almost every other school in the
nation our size had a weekly paper if they had one at all.

This worked out for me because, as a result of the paper and the
magazine, I spent about 130 hours a semester writing stories and
articles for these publications.

Mark Ford, Malcom Gladwell, and others say that to become
competent at a skill, you have to do it for about 1,000 hours.

Because of my extra-curricular activities, by the time I
graduated UR in May 1979, I had more than a thousand hours of
writing practice.

And even though I was a chemical engineering major, and not an
English major, I had become — well, not a great writer — but a
competent writer.

With that skill plus my BS in engineering, I quickly and easily
landed multiple job offers in positions where the companies
wanted a writer with a good grasp of science and technology —
positions they told me they had real trouble filling.

So I took one, got hired as a staff marketing and technical
writer at Westinghouse, and my writing career began.

I also know that getting a STEM degree allowed my youngest son to
make six-figures immediately upon graduating college a couple of
years ago.

So I understand that not everybody is a fan of or needs a college
education.

But I wouldn’t universally knock it as it is so fashionable to do
today.

One other thing….

When discussions of this nature pop up on Facebook, somebody
invariably says, “Become an entrepreneur — you will make so much
more money!”

Maybe. But the reality is that the average small business owner
in the U.S. today has a respectable but nowhere near spectacular
income:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-income-small-business-owners-5189.html

A lot of people view living on campus as play time —
self-indulgence for spoiled rich kids.

For me, it was a maturing experience.

To pay for college, I took both students loans and a job washing
dishes in the school cafeteria for 15 hours a week.

The debt, the job, the magazine, the daily paper, and the rigors
of STEM study made me more mature than I was when I entered —
although granted, I was an immature teen.

So again, for me, it worked out, and I can’t knock it.

Though I understand why some people, when they see videos of
Spring Break in Mexico or Florida (neither of which I ever did),
think college kids are spoiled brats.

I was recently asked by a trade association to give a
presentation at their national meeting, which is out of town and
would require a plane trip to reach.

As a member of the organization, I know they do not pay speakers.

And out of loyalty and fondness for them, I offered to waive my
usual 4-figure speaking fee and do it for free, as long as they
covered my expenses — and of course let me attend the event on
the day of my talk free of charge.

They immediately responded:

“Bob, the terms you specify are eminently reasonable. However,
they are not what we had in mind.

“Paying your travel expenses would not be possible, and we also
normally expect speakers to attend the conference at a reduced
fee — though there is possible flexibility there.”

I quickly sent off a quick email:

“Thanks for the kind invite, but I have to pass.”

Was I insulted?

Not really.

Many organizations don’t pay their breakout session speakers …
and many people accept these invitations gladly.

In my early days, I did too, because speaking at meetings
attended by potential clients was a good way to promote my
services.

However, for many years, the demand for my copywriting has
greatly outweighed the supply, which is sharply limited by time.

And so the incentive to speak without fee is no longer present.

In fact, when the group first invited me to present at their
upcoming event, my original response was as follows:

“Thanks for asking me. I’d love to do it.

“When I speak without my usual fee, I attend the conference … on
the day of my presentation only … for free.

“The sponsor organization pays all my expenses including airfare,
ground transportation, food, and lodging.

“If the presentation is videotaped, I get a copy of the mp4 and
the right to use it however I wish.

“I also get one ad in the organization’s e-newsletter, also for
free.”

But they would have none of it.

So there’s little or no motivation for me to go.

And that’s the end of the story.

Except for this:

I am still a member. And will be for as long as I live.

I love the people in the association — both those running it and
my fellow members.

And if they ever have the meeting in NYC, which is just an hour’s
drive for me, I’ll do it for free in a flash.

But pay for my own airline ticket and hotel?

That’s where, rightly or wrongly, I draw the line.

Recently, on a Facebook post, I casually mentioned in passing
that I get a lot of my books to read at the local town library.

My Facebook friend LW wrote:

“Bob, why the public library when there is Kindle?”

My immediate thought was:

“LW, why Kindle when there is the public library?”

I absolutely prefer paperbound books over digital books — and I
am a regular patron at my town library.

As Louis L’Armour writes in his book “Education of a Wandering
Man” (Bantam), “Education is available to anyone within reach of
a library.”

My fellow copywriter and FB friend DG says:

“I’m a public library guy and I also buy books. I only read
paperbound books myself, and I’m already way out of room to store
the ones I have.”

Now, I understand the many reasons why people tell me they love
their Kindle readers. I just don’t find them personally
appealing.

One of the big reasons people advocate Kindle is the ability to
easily carry dozens or hundreds of books with them wherever they
go.

But since I almost never go anywhere, there’s no benefit to me.

And in those rare instances when I do travel, one thick paperback
is enough to get me through the round-trip flight.

There are legions of people who just love paperbound books as
physical objects: the feel, the look, even the smell and feel of
the paper.

I’m one of them. And Kindle takes that all away from me.

As the author of more than 90 books from mainstream publishing
houses, one of my greatest rewards is holding my published
hardcover or paperback book in my hand — and putting a few
copies in our bookcase.

Holding electrons in my hands just doesn’t give me that same
pride of authorship.

(Similarly, I get much more of a charge holding a magazine with
my article in it than I do seeing my article on some website.)

Another big advantage of physical books is the venues where I get
them: bookstores, libraries, and used book catalogs, my favorite
of which is Edward R. Hamilton, though Bas Bleu and Daedelus are
not far behind. (Especially Bas, because they often carry my
books.)

When you are in a library or a bookstore, or thumbing through a
book catalog, you encounter all sorts of books, information, and
subjects that you otherwise would never have thought about
before.

Yes, this can also happen online

But in a bookstore or library, with the actual book in front of
you, the compulsion to browse is, for me, even greater than
online. And yes, like so many people, I like web surfing.

Now, you may be thinking that I am a hypocrite, because I
publish, sell, as well as read PDF ebooks.

But when I buy a PDF ebook, I don’t read it on a screen. I print
it out, put it in a 3-ring binder, and read it has a hard copy
document.

And I suggest to my PDF ebook buyers that they do the same.
Although, of course, they are free to read it on a screen if they
prefer.

One of the most common questions I get is, “Bob, what book are
you reading now?”

And most people are shocked to find that it is a novel, short
story collection, play, nonfiction narrative, social issue,
science, math, history, economics, or informational book on a
topic other than marketing or business.

The 2 best ways to get better as a writer are to write a lot and
read a lot. And to read widely. Not just about writing,
copywriting, marketing, or business.

And there are 2 reasons reading a lot and widely helps you become
a better writer.

First, you read the books for the content. So your brain’s
storehouse of information, from which you pull content for your
writing, is large and varied.

Second, you absorb the techniques and tricks of the trades other
writers use, and incorporate the best of those in your own
writing.

Sounds simple. It is simple. But it also takes a lifetime and
only stops when you die.

So, what do I like to read? Well, without further preamble, here
in no particular order are my 15 favorite books of all time:

1–“A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving.

2–“Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller.

3–“Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor.

4–“The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy.

5–“Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy.

6–“Essentialism” by Greg McKeown.

7–“Lord of Light” by Roger Zelazny.

8–“Drought” by J.G. Ballard.

9–“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka.

10–“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.

11–“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes.

12–“Deathbird Stories” by Harlan Ellison.

13–“The Ascent of Man” by Jacob Bronowski.

14–“Mockingbird” by Walter Tevis.

15–“The Shootist” by Glen Swarthout.

If you asked me for a list of my top 100 instead of just these
15, I could fill it easily.

I can’t help it. I just love books and reading; the addiction is
beyond my control.

We recently saw War of the Planet of the Apes, where intelligent
apes take over as the dominant species of our planet.

Well, it’s happening … only instead of apes taking over, it’s
smartphones and laptops!

According to an article in ClickZ, Gartner predicts that by 2018,
20% of all business content will be written by machine.

In July 2017, Google invested over $800,000 in the Press
Association’s initiative to generate news stories solely through
the use of AI.

The frightening future for writers is that AI machines may make
us totally obsolete by doing our jobs as well or better than we
can — and for a lot less money.

And it’s not just writers whose jobs are in danger of vanishing.
It’s a much bigger portion of the working world.

In his book The Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford reprints a
perfectly adequate sports article and reveals it was written
entirely by computer — without the touch of a human hand. It’s
not spectacular, but it’s certainly competent B-level sports
writing.

Swedish programmer Sverker Johansson built an AI writing
algorithm that has authored nearly 3 million articles now posted
on Wikipedia.

And it’s not just writers who are in danger of losing their jobs
to a computer.

In China, human customer service representatives who handle live
chatbot calls are now being replaced by algorithms.

[x]cube, a maker of automated chatbots, says that 34% of
businesses surveyed believe that half of all customer service
calls could be handled by robot chatbots without a human agent.

Elon Musk believes that by 2030 to 2040 computers will be able to
do anything a human can do.

It makes me wonder why Musk, Google, the Chinese AI chatbot
maker, and other clever tech entrepreneurs are so darn eager to
put billions of human beings permanently out of work.

Years ago, I had this debate with AN, an old college friend.

AN gave the party line about automation and robotics “freeing”
people from dull, repetitive jobs so they can do more rewarding
and creative work.

What AN and others miss is this: there are a number of people who
don’t have the skills or ability or drive to work at a higher
level than the “dull, repetitive” jobs they hold now.

So when you “free” them from their current boring jobs, you move
them into permanent and boring unemployment.

For instance, in the early 1960s, as a kid my mom would take me
to visit my dad at work.

His building in downtown Paterson, NJ, the city where we lived,
had a manual elevator run by Joe, a friendly elevator operator
who was always nice to me, because he liked kids.

One day mom and I went to visit dad, and Joe was gone.

“Where’s Joe?” I asked.

She pointed to the self-service buttons labeled G and 1-5 on
the control panel of the new shiny automatic elevator that had
replaced the creaky old manual — and eliminated Joe’s job.

“What’s Joe going to do?” I asked.

She shrugged.

So I still think about what happened to Joe. He was older, and I
suspect he had trouble finding another job, if he was able to at
all.

And I also think about what will happen to us in 2040 if Musk is
right.

And he probably will be, even if his date comes a little sooner
or a little later.

Subscriber RK writes:

“Bob, I am trying to read some of the classic marketing books you
recommend, such as those written by David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins,
John Caples, Robert Collier, and Vic Schwab.

“But all the examples in them are print ads, and it’s hard for me
to see how these relate to app banners or email follow-up
sequences.”

I hear this a lot from millennial marketers: They believe that
the rapid pace of change has made the marketing of the 20th
century irrelevant to marketing in the 21st century.

Here’s why such thinking is fallacious:

Yes, the technology, media, and methods — newspapers and network
TV commercials vs. social media, programmatic advertising, and
hyperlocal marketing — are much different today than they were
yesterday.

But the core of marketing is not channels, technology, databases,
or media.

Rather, the most important element of marketing and selling is
human psychology — or more specifically, the psychology of
persuasion.

And as the great Claude Hopkins noted, human psychology has not
changed in ten centuries.

That means the core persuasion techniques of Ogilvy, Caples, and
the other master marketers whose books I recommend have not lost
one microdot of their power and effectiveness.

And here are the 10 books I fervently believe every marketer, and
that goes especially for you young folk, should devour:

1– “How to Write a Good Advertisement” by Vic Schwab, Wilshire
Book Company. A common-sense course in how to write advertising
copy that gets people to buy your product or service, written by
a plain-speaking veteran mail order copywriter in 1960.

2– “My First 50 Years in Advertising” by Max Sackheim,
Prentice-Hall. Another plain-speaking, common-sense guide that
stresses salesmanship over creativity, and results over awards.
The author was one of the originators of the Book of the Month
Club.

3– “The Robert Collier Letter Book” by Robert Collier, Important
Books. While Schwab and Sackheim concentrate on space ads,
Collier focuses on the art of writing sales letters. While some
of his letters may seem old-fashioned and dated, Collier’s
timeless principles still apply.

4– “Reality in Advertising” by Rosser Reeves, Alfred A. Knopf. The
book in which Reeves introduced the now-famous 3-part concept of
Unique Selling Proposition; not one marketer in a hundred today
knows the 3 essential parts of a winning USP.

5– “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz, Boardroom. A
copywriting guide by one of the greatest direct-response
copywriters of the 20th century.

6– “Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples, Prentice-Hall.
Presents the principles of persuasion as proven through A/B split
tests.

7– “Confessions of an Advertising Man” by David Ogilvy, Atheneum.
Charming autobiography of legendary ad man David Ogilvy, packed
with useful advice on how to create effective advertising.

8– “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins, Bell Publishing. A
book on the philosophy that advertising’s purpose is to sell, not
entertain or win creative awards — and that only testing, not
subjective opinion, can determine what actually works.

9– “Method Marketing” by Denny Hatch, Bonus Books. A book on how
to write successful direct response copy by putting yourself in
the customer’s shoes.

10– “Advertising Secrets of the Written Word” by Joseph Sugarman,
DelStar. How to write ad copy by a master of mail order
advertising.

Have I left any out? Yes, many. But this list is a good start.

How many have you read? If not all, you ignore them at your own
peril.

My Facebook friend CR writes:

“As a relative newcomer, I’d love to find my way into the passive
income world. I get stuck at the very beginning: topic.

“I have the same problem trying to create articles to build
reputation in my new copywriting niche.

“What do I know that anyone else would want to know? I ponder and
ponder, but so far, nothing.”

Here is the answer….

The mistake people make — whether creating info products, or
writing articles or books — is to say, “What can I write about? I
don’t know anything special” … just as CR says above.

But she — and they — and you, if you believe her — are wrong.

My good friend Dr. Gary North says:

“The great mistake most small-business people make is to imagine
that their detailed knowledge of their niche market is widely
dispersed.

“On the contrary, hardly anyone knows it. They are owners of a
capital asset that others do not possess and have no easy way of
possessing.”

Dan Kennedy notes, “You know something that someone will pay to
learn. There are plenty of opportunities to help people get the
most out of their business and life.

“You just need to grasp a few key strategies for presenting
yourself as an expert advisor and people will gladly pay to get
that guidance from you.”

Ray Bradbury said every writer was capable of producing unique
writing, because each person’s experience is different.

Now, when I repeat Dr. North’s statement, the next objection I
hear is:

“Well, I know something about a few things … but I am not a top
expert in these subjects. So I have no authority to pontificate
about them.”

My friend, top info marketer Fred Gleeck, overcomes this argument
with his 90/10 principle of content.

Fred says yes, maybe there are a few people … say as many as 10%
of the world’s population … that know as much or more about your
topic than you do.

But, you are not writing for them. They are not your audience.

You are writing for the 90% or more of readers who know less
about your topic than you do — for they are your audience.

Gary North says you already know more than 90% of people about
your topic because of your extensive experience.

Or what Dan Kennedy calls “expensive experience,” because (a) it
cost you a lot in time, study, and effort to acquire and (b) you
can sell it for a profit to others.

One famous speaker I know said he became an expert in his topic
by reading a couple of books every week on the subject for an
entire year — 100 books in all.

Mark Ford says you become knowledgeable in a skill or field once
you have spent 1,000 hours practicing the discipline … and if you
work at it 20 hours a week, you’ll have logged those thousand
hours in about a year.

As for becoming a master, Mark says that takes around 10,000
hours of practice.

One other point: People read as much for repetition as for new
knowledge.

So if your book, article, or info products mostly tells them what
they already know, they’ll enjoy and learn from it — think you,
the author, really know your stuff, because it jibes with their
own understanding — and feel they have gotten their money’s
worth.

And if in that book, article, or info product you also give them
a couple of new ideas, they’ll be even happier.

So I say to you and to CR: Ponder my advice above, if you wish.

But really, the best way to overcome CR’s objection and worry is:
just start writing.

What you produce will be much better than you expect — most
likely surprisingly so.

And with some rewrites and polishing, you’ll in short order have
a publishable and valuable work.

As Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote in his best-selling book Baby and
Child Care:

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”