Content creation secret of a forbidden speech

Not a speech by a great world leader. Or a speech by one of those two or three politicians capable of such. Or one given by any business man or woman. No, the speech I am referring to is the one given by the character Dennis Hopper played in the movie “True Romance” before he’s shot in the head point blank. Fact is, when Quentin Tarantino was still shopping his Reservoir Dogs script around, he had also written the scripts for True Romance and Natural Born Killers. And his scripts routinely got rejected over and over and over by what seemed like everyone. Quentin got one rejection letter for True Romance saying: “How dare you send me this fucking piece of shit. Are you out of your fucking mind” The reason? Probably the notorious speech Dennis Hopper’s character gave about the Moors. (That he gave just to piss off the Sicilian mafia guy about to kill him.) I seriously doubt that “forbidden” speech would make it into any mainstream movie in today’s climate especially. Frankly, it barely even made it into that movie in 1993. But Tarantino must have convinced the powers that be of it somehow. Probably by talking about how he heard the whole story in the speech practically verbatim from one of his mom’s black boyfriends when he was a kid. Maybe he embellished and maybe he didn’t. But I do remember watching it with a chick I was dating shortly before I met Stefania, and she was literally squirming in her seat watching that one scene, and all but wanted to run out of the room. That’s simply the kind of reaction that movie gets: People either love or hate it, with very few luke warm reactions. Which brings me back to the lesson: Nobody wanted to touch that script until it landed on Tony Scott’s desk. i.e., the guy who directed Top Gun amongst many other blockbuster movies. He read both the True Romance and Reservoir Dogs scripts back-to-back in a single sitting. And he wanted to direct them both. But he ended up only directing True Romance and the rest is history. Point of all this: When it comes to creating content, if you aren’t getting at least some kind of reaction where someone is freaking out over what you wrote/said/recorded you probably ain’t doing it right. Not saying to write about things that will get you cancelled or run out of town necessarily. And I am not saying to lie or mislead or deceive. And there’s no guarantees of anything. True Romance was basically a box office bomb, but it did help put Tarantino and many of its actors like Samuel Jackson, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, etc on a lot of big “maps” in the industry. So in that sense, it was worth a helluva lot. What I am saying is your ideas should be dramatic. They should be bold. And they should be filled with passion. Absolutely nobody notices luke warm. But they will notice scalding hot. This is especially true with selling high-ticket content you want to sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The more outrageous your ideas, the more engagement your content should get. The more engagement it gets, the more likely it’ll be consumed. The more of it that gets consumed, the more it will likely be applied. The more it is applied, the more customers should benefit. The more customer benefit, the more your business’ box office gross grows. When creating such content it is not the time to be meek. You gotta go out swinging for the fences. And if you do take something too far? The market will let you know. But I can say this: I’ve collectively written several thousands of pages of content in the many high-ticket books I sell. And in some cases, I push pretty hard with this. But I still am not pushing hard enough. If I was, I’d get more complaints. Something I intend to fix in my next book about how I use design in my direct response-driven business. Whether I will succeed at finally getting some complaint mail about it from customers has yet to be seen. But I am pushing certain ideas in it I know will piss off the hardcore direct response marketing crowd who can’t make a decision without consulting Google docs, their Facebook friends, or their horoscope, if nothing else. In the meantime: The December “Email Players” issue talks a lot about creating content. Specifically, 7 ways to help create the high-ticket kind. The kind of content you can charge 100’s or possibly even 1000s or tens of 1000’s for. To subscribe before the deadline, go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. To celebrate the Email Players Newsletter’s 125th issue next month, I’m also including an extremely valuable bonus: “Email Players Annual #1: Age of Swipeocalypse” This bonus Annual issue I am including with the December issue exists outside the normal continuity of the newsletter. And I mostly wrote it to commemorate the newsletter’s 10-year anniversary this year (it launched in 2011), and say some things I’ve been wanting to say about swiping ever since, but never found the right “slot” to teach it in. Here are just a few of the secrets inside: * Word-for-word examples showing exactly how to swipe without breaking any copyright laws, being an unethical loser, or outright stealing. * A secret technique that can help even slow writers (literally) write high converting emails in as little as 4 minutes. * A cunning way invented 60+ years ago by a brilliant and cranky “Mad Man” era copywriter (not 1 in 1,000 copywriters have probably ever heard of) to sometimes help create near-perfect sales letter headlines. * A one sentence power lesson in how the late, great A-list copywriter Jim Rutz used his swipe file to knock out industry-changing winning controls time and time and time again. * A secret place where all the best email swipe files I've ever seen are contained. * A real-life case study showing why blindly following “what’s working now!” can get you a pittance of the response you could be getting at best… or viciously killing your response at worst. (If I could go back 20 years and learn just ONE tip about copywriting, and nothing else, this would be it. It’s that powerful, that profound, and that profitable.) * Why swiping one of the single greatest copywriters today (ironically a guy all the fanboys love stealing from) could destroy your response in a heartbeat! * What two of the highest paid & most successful A-list copywriters on the planet both admitted to me about swiping that would probably put all the copywriting template sellers out of business overnight. (Hint: one of these great men of copywriting said when he got into the game in the early nineties, and found out who Gary Bencivenga was, he would study Gary’s ads and actually try to copy the exact number of paragraphs between sales arguments and that sort of thing… only to realize that wasn’t the way to do it. There’s a much better way instead, that’s revealed inside.) * 6 attributes of an email subject line people have almost no choice but to notice and open. * How to “coax” your clients into writing the sales copy they are paying you to write… and being perfectly happy doing so. * The big difference between how all the A-list copywriters I’ve known & talked to approach swiping vs how the normie copywriters in all those Facebook groups you haunt all day approach swiping. * An old school “retro” website I go to whenever I am stuck for subject line ideas and phrases. (Just click on this site and you’ll probably have all the email subject line ideas, inspiration, and discoveries you can ask for.) * A swipe file of email subject lines you can plunder from one of the greatest copywriting minds who ever lived. * A quickie "crash course" on how to use a swipe file straight from one of the single best A-list direct mail copywriters in the game. * And so on, and so forth. This bonus makes this 125th issue a good “jumping on” point for those new to my list. But, not if you are a lazy bum copywriter. If that is you, then you are simply too short for this ride and will be grossly disappointed by what is inside. My way of swiping is 100% opposite of all the ways you are hearing it taught, is not at-all “cool”, and requires quite a bit of work to pull off. Neither the December issue about creating high-ticket content or the bonus Swipeocalypse Annual issue will do a single blessed thing to help the carpet drooling newbie who buys everything and does nothing, and has no sense of commitment or long term thinking. All right enough. To subscribe in time to get in on all this, high-tail it over to the URL below: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2021 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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