Hello Everyone,

This is my first post here but I have studied Michael's advice for a while. I especially liked his book Power Positioning Dot Com, and would recommend it to anyone who has not read it yet.

His recent article posted from his blog entitled
Blame The Copywriter, Not The Copy » Copywriting Blog By Copywriter Michel Fortin

was an excellent piece. I normally don't like long copy but occassionally find myself reading some of it. His article brought to my awarness why this is so.. and that is because it is good copy. What I usually click away from is bad copy, and thats what a lot of ad copy on the web is these days.

As much as I didn't like long copy I attempted to write my first piece for a client / business partner / friend of mine for his novel which surronds the death of John Lennon. I also took Michael's advice and made it as long as it had to be, which in this case turned out pretty long.

After reading the latest Blog post I started to panic. You see I just posted this ad copy on Dec 9th of this year. It being my first piece I wasn't too sure of how good of a job I have done. Then reading the blog post made me a little anxious.

So I was hoping you would be willing to take a peek at it and give my your feedback.

You can have a look at

Once A Man Twice A Child, Part I Tomorrow Never Knows. Did The Prophecy of John Lennon's Death Really Begin on December 8 1967?

Notice the first few lines were put in place to five the search engines a summary of what the page is about. I did this to help with indexing since they first few lines of text is usually the most important when it comes to search engines.

Do you think this takes away from the impact of the adcopy?

Thank you for your time and help. I look forward to your opinions.

Sincerely,
Eric Bonnici

To be completely candid (Thanks for that one Michel )...

This copy is a trainwreck.

I'm very sorry to say it but... The headline is boring, doesn't grab me at all. I think the real "hook" in this story is the "6 Year Old Boy uncovering XYZ Fact that Foretold John Lennon's Death... 16 Years In Advance."

You could follow up with something like

"Historians shocked as John Lennon Expert reveals 24 years of Research for the very first time.. that (gives XYZ insight about his death.. whatever the information implies)"

The first thing I'm thinking is: This is paranoid, conspiracy theory thinking.

As you get in the intro (From the desk of... Part) it gets even worse.. There's so much information you're giving that's just not interesting or related. What you wanna do (if there are actually grounds for it) is tell how a 6 year old boy uncovered facts (not guesswork or "coincedences") that uncovered a "horrible truth" or "startling discovery"... Give some hard facts right upfront, and then tell the story as to how it was discovered... Get some storytelling into that 6 year old boys world, what he discovered, how it haunted him and caused him to put the pieces together during 24 years of research... that led him to discover shocking facts that he now finally reveals for the very first time.

That's about the best advice I can give you right now.. I suggest you also have a good listen to the John Carlton call and do a complete rewrite after that. Think things over and come up with a hook. Then tell your story (and gives facts & build credibility into it), make the offer and close.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Erik.

Like I said this was my first attempt at ad copy.

I think what you think is the hook would be great but in all actuallity I think that would make it a bit misleading. Basically at 6 years of age Alice, the boy, heard a John Lennon / Beatles song that scared him so much that he had nightmares the same night he heard it. And for many years even into adulthood he never forgot that dream.

As he grew up he always seemed to notice little details in music, album covers, concerts, world events etc. all releated to the Beatles, and he always had strange feelings about it.. anyway when John lennon died he went back over the past 13 years and researched some of what he noticed growing up and found many strange conincidences that all relate to john lennon's death.

Thats the basics of it all. So really a six year old boy didn't discover all these facts all at once... but rather he started to experience everything at 6 years old and didn't make sense of any of it until 13 years later.

Also, we don't want to lie or make things up like the part about...

Historians Shocked.... Do you think your suggestion would have the same impact if we used...

Beatles' Fans shocked as John Lennon Expert reveals 24 years of Research for the very first time.. that (gives XYZ insight about his death.. whatever the information implies



Also, I am very concerned that you say the very start gives a conspiracy theory feel to it... that is the last thing we want...

It is not a conspiracy theory at all... it is merely a long list of true facts releated to John Lennon and The Beatles that are put into a fictional story line... the catch is that story line is not all fictional... only a small part of it is... such as when the child in the story speaks to a voice that comes from a golden light...

And all these facts all strangely point to the exact day John Lennon will die or circumstances related to his death...

It seems like a prophecy that was written into Lennon's destiny.. but we don't want to portray it this way... we don't want it to be a conspiracy theory which it is not... and we don't want it to be about the cosmic structure of the universe or a prophecy...

All we are trying to do is bring all these facts to peoples awareness... show them how Alice interpreted these facts.... some of the interpretation is done by merely stating how strange certain facts are... like the part about the Walrus and The Circle of death... ( the article is on the web page)...

And after all the information is presented to the public we want them to judge for themselves if John Lennon was destined to die on Dec 8 1980.

Sorry for rambling... I just want to know what exactly makes you think it is conspiracy in the first part of the website.. so I can fix that....

And finally, the reason I tell a paragraph about myself, in the From The Desk of Part, is to build my credibility and how I became involved with this book... should I not do this? Or should I delete parts of it and be more focused... such as delete the part where I tell what articles I have written... should I just elimiate that and get to the point that I met Dan Alice and he told me about his John Lennon research, and I became fascinated with it, and I offered to build him a website?

Thanks so much and I look forward to your reply and advice

Eric B

One more question where can I find the John Carlton Call you are talking about?

Thanks
Eric B

I also agree the headline and begining is a mess... lol

I actually thought it was great until I took a closer look just now...

I guess I need to pinpoint the exact hook and go on that...

I like your advice on that above and look forward to your responses.

Eric B

Found the Carlton Call Here

AskGaryHalbert.com/free/

Thanks
Eric

Hello Again,

I have replaced my attempt at adcopy with the original page...

If anyone is still interested in seeing my first attempt at ad copy, it has moved to www.onceaman.com/indexcopy.htm

I haven't had time to work on it... I am actually moving to a new city this week and don't think I will have much time to work on this for a few weeks. When I do I hope I can count on your help.

Thanks so much.

Eric B

The new copy is a really, really fantastic improvement.
If you keep improving at this rate you'll overtake Halbert in about a year or two.

Okay so I'm being funny but it really is an impressive improvement.

Just needs some rearrangement and tweaking in my opinion.

How about:

In 1967 A Song From John Lennon
Left A Six Year Old Boy Traumatized...

"At The Tender Age Of Six
How Did Dan Alice
Know John Lennon Would Die
Exactly 13 Years Before It Happened?"

Thanks for the response Cartoonman

I actually just got my Internet connection set up after moving to Toronto.

The most important thing here is that we don't want to mislead the reader...

We don't want to give the impression that Dan Alice knew John Lennon would die exactly 13 years before it happend....

What happened is that Dan Alice started noticing many things that first started happening exactly 13 years before John Lennon died... it was not until the day Lennon died that Dan noticed that everything he experienced or noticed 13 years earlier was all strangely connected to Lennons death.. there were many coincindences and key dates or events that when interpreted gave the exact day Lennon died..

but Dan did not interpret this or realize all the conincidences until Lennon died... so he didn't know Lennon was going to die.. although for some strange reason he had a weird feeling about everything and it made sense to him after Lennon died but not before...

I hope this makes sense... and that someone can help with a good hook and or headline

Eric B

What about:

In 1967 A Song From John Lennon
Left A Six Year Old Boy Traumatized...

"At The Tender Age Of Six
What Did Dan Alice
Know About John Lennon's Death
Exactly 13 Years Before It Happened?"