The Lazy Man's Way To Riches

You beat me to the punch. This was written in one of Joe Sugarman's
workshops, but it shows how your copy can FLOW when you write it
in one sitting--at least for me it does. The letter is very natural and
its real beauty is in the simplicity.

-Ray Edwards

Really? It was written one time sitting with no revisions at all? It's great!

Scott, did you ever read the book? I was around back then and remember the ad. I also bought the book.

Before writing this post I dug out my copy of "The Lazy Man's Way To Riches."

The first half of the book is about positive mental attitude - he called it "Dyna/Psyc."
The second half of the book is about how to get into direct response advertising. There is even a chapter on how to write advertising copy. He talks about some of the ads he had written. He wrote a lot of copy.

He was an advertising man who bought the all-night air time at a local TV station. This was in the days when TV stations just beginning to be on the air 24 hours a day. He bought the night spot, sold advertising, wrote copy, and put on an all-night program in which he did schtick and played movies.

He then committed to a quarter million dollars worth of purchases when the station decided to drop him. The station figured they could make more money selling that all-night time to other advertisers, so the station management did not renew Karbo's contract to buy the air time.

Here he was in hock up to his eyeballs. A quarter million dollars in the late 1960's would be like 2 million dollars today. He refused to file for bankruptcy, and instead, began researching how to get out of debt. He contacted all his creditors, and let them know they would be paid eventually, then Karbo began selling a book about "How To Get Out Of Debt."

With that, the California Bar Association tried to claim he was giving legal advice without being an attorney. He won the case and continued to sell his out of debt info.

A friend gave him a box full of peep-hole viewers - those fish-eye lens things you find in hotel doors or appartment doors so you can look out and see who is knocking on the door. Karbo repositioned them as the "Amazing Spy Scope" "See thorough walls, see through fences, see through doors." He sold-out of the viewers and had to buy more.

Strangely enough he didn't mail to the list of buyers of his "Lazy Man's" book to sell a back end product to them.

:-Don

@wizard - A fellow named "Richard G. Nixon" (no relation to dead presidents) bought the rites to Karbo's book. He acquired it from Karbo's family in the early 1990s. Nizon then re-wrote the book to add some of his own infirmation to it.

If you look real closely at the ad on that webpage, you will see the name "Richard Nixon" is also on the cover of the book. It's not the same as the original book. Nixon later came out with a workbook as a companion book the TLMWTR book.

Dude, you really need to buy and read the basics FIRST before buying some $100 book that you mentioned in the other thread. Betcha every dime in my pocket that 5 of my top 10 list of copywriting books (see sticky) are going to teach you a TON more than that Garber book.

I can't believe you haven't read Sugarman's book new for $15 or used for $10... and you're buying some $100 book that is going to rehash stuff you can get for under $10.

Haha.. I've added it to my Amazon wishlist too (among with ~ 200 other books I have on there!) The annoying thing with living in Canada is that many of these "older" books aren't available to be shipped here...

maximus242 --"I have first edition of Joe Karbos Lazy Mans Way To Riches. Its a great book, has a section on writing copy."

Thanks for the feedback -- I'll try to get my hands on it..


Back to the ad, noticed something interesting...

You know how they say "talk about them" and not about yourself? Well, here are a few word counts on this ad (boxes excluded):

I / I'll / I'm -- 48
We -- 3
Me / My -- 16
You / Your -- 32

So basically 67 to 32 or a 2:1 ratio of "forms of I" versus "forms of you".

Now obviously this doesn't mean this works all the time but as always, there are exceptions to every rule. Anyway, food for thought...

Thanks for sharing your story - that's amazing

It also reminds me that I have a report from Harvey Brody somewhere that I need to read...

Best,
David

That is so awesome that you actually met him in person.

I want to thank him for helping me take my life to the next level.

I've only read the revised edition (reading original after 2nd go around with this one)
and found it to be great (see above testimonial in previous post).

BUT, the first time around I did not have the companion Roadmap To Riches workbook
which the revised edition pointed to throughout the book.

Not having it while going through this version made me want it really bad as if I was
missing out on something.

So I found one on Amazon (there are usually only 1-3 copies available at a time) and
coughed up $100 just to get my hands on it.

THEN, I read The Lazy Man's Way To Riches again with the workbook close by and
went through all the steps and that is why my life has changed and is changing.

The workbook leads you through the actual steps Joe Karbo tells you to take.

But you have to be ready for it.

Don't buy the workbook if you won't do the exercises. Let somebody else that WILL do
them get their hands on it.

Good luck finding a copy

Jason

I read that book around 40 years ago. Yes, I'm old. But it's one of the few books and ads I still remember. The book was a road map to self motivation and building a successful mail order business. Long since lost the book in several divorces and moves, but maybe I'll buy it online again.

There's a site in Nevada that seems to be offering Karbo's products. Not sure it's still a working site, but here it is: The Lazy Man's Way to Riche$ | News & Information Homepage .

The ordering/DL parts aren't working for me today, but the main site seems to come up OK.

Good luck.

wizard77