Are you too busy to read fiction?

Want to understand people? How they
think? What makes them tick?
What makes them human?

Read a novel.

In college, my English professor Dr.
Knoll was the best professor I'd ever
had by a country mile. As a matter of
fact, he was the best teacher I've ever
had, before or since. 67 years old, a mind
sharp as a razor, a gifted communicator
who could bring profound insight to almost
any subject. Probably the most "well read"
person I've ever met.

Dr. Knoll had a very interesting bit
of advice for prospective medical
students. "Read lots of NOVELS," he
would say. "Don't kid yourself that
being a doctor is about technical
stuff. A good doctor understands
PEOPLE. Novels, fiction and literature
teach you about people. 70% of patients
problems are mental not physical,
at least indirectly.

Medical schools turn out medical
researchers. And medical research
has nothing to do with the real
cause of most people's `medical'
problems."

If this is good advice for a doctor,
then it's a rock solid recommendation
for marketers and salespeople. Advice
I'd ignored for a long time, by the
way, until my wife plunked a novel
down in my lap last month and said,
"Perry, you HAVE to read this book."

She finally got through to me. She's
been reminding me that I spend too
much time working and not enough time
enjoying the good things in life.
Kind of like that line from `The Shining'
by Stephen King: ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
MAKES JACK A DULL BOY.

Just in case you can't figure out what
to read, here are three fiction titles
I've read recently. All three of these
were books I couldn't put down once I
was into them:

Foreign Bodies by Hwee Hwee Tan – Set
in Singapore, a story of a young man
framed for a crime he didn't commit,
and his friends efforts to reverse
the circumstances. Insightfully Asian,
totally "Generation X", and stunningly
well written by a 23 year old woman.
An angular metaphysical theme probes
GenX's search for meaning in a cynical
world.

The Street Lawyer by John Grisham – A
yuppie lawyer in Washington DC has a
near scrape with death and gets exposed
to the hidden reality of homeless people,
which jolts him into quitting his job and
fighting for an invisible class of people
that gets pushed and shoved by the
oblivious middle and upper classes.
This book draws together two REAL worlds
that you may never otherwise experience:
big city, big time law firms (which
Grisham writes about with great skill) and
the hidden world of soup kitchens and
homeless shelters.

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King – The
undisputed ruler of the horror genre
and one of the finest novelists of our
time, Stephen King weaves a complex
tapestry of masterful character development,
colorful and cutting dialogue, multiple
subplots, gripping suspense and mind
bending abstraction. This book is
about the invasion of an alien in
the mind of the book's hero, and
his deadly race to save humanity
from a lethal virus.

(This book was a birthday gift from
my wife, who wrote inside the cover,
"Because you need more pleasure in
your life.")

I've read all of these books inside
a span of thirty days. Fiction reads
much faster than non-fiction. But for
those of you who think it's a waste of
time, here's something to consider.

All of these books, particularly
Dreamcatcher and Foreign Bodies,
develop multiple three dimensional,
lifelike characters with great
skill. The conversations are so
realistic, the description so
superb, that you are irresistibly
drawn into the story. You experience
compelling empathy with the characters
in the story.

I dare say that very few copywriters
and advertising people –
even the superstars that earn $25,000
per sales letter – can actually
write as well as the top novelists.
But what's good about their copywriting
is the same stuff that's good about a
novel – it has so many emotional triggers,
so much empathy and so much humanity
that the reader gets absorbed in the story.

And yes, good advertising copy always tells
a story.

Novels will stimulate your imagination
like nothing else, and they WILL sharpen
your writing. NOT a waste of time. And
can I tell you something else I've
discovered? Similar to my "pink
Cadillac theory of killer sales people,"
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smartmarketing/message/19 )
I've found that most good sales people and
marketers are avid readers too.

***

4 years ago this month, I was desperately
struggling with a number of difficult factors –
wrong product, wrong message, wrong
understanding of `sales psychology' –
the commission checks were actually
declining, and I was going deeper in
debt. I went to "Success 97" in Peoria,
Illinois, and purchased Dan Kennedy's
Magnetic Marketing Kit. Within a year's
time, it literally turned my sales
career around.

This week I have a very special offer
to make to my subscribers: I got my
hands on a very small number of Dan
Kennedy Magnetic Marketing Kits –
complete with the outstanding Midas
Touch tapes and a six month Kennedy
Inner Circle membership with a series
of genuinely powerful bonuses.

If you've been thinking about increasing
your sales effectiveness with smart
marketing, it's time to stop procrastinating.
Click on www.usedtapes.com/mm to find
out all about it. And please remember:
once these are gone, they're gone!

Sincerely,

Perry