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Table of Contents

This is not a textbook, calculated to show the beginner how to take his pen or typewriter in hand and indite a masterly epistle to some fancied customer.

It is for the business man who already knows the theory of letter writing but is looking for more effective ways of putting it into practice.

It covers all the necessary rules, of course, but it does this informally. Primarily, it is the log book of a long and varied experience.

It shows successful ways of selling all manner of products, from coal and coke right on down to socks and dresses. But through all the differences in products and appeals, runs this one connecting thread—that while products and reasons for buying may vary, human nature remains much the same; that familiarity with the thing you are selling is an advantage, but the one essential without which success is impossible in selling, by mail or selling in person, is a thorough understanding of human reactions.

Study your reader first—your product second. If you understand his reactions, and present those phases of your product that relate to his needs, then you cannot help but write a good letter.

It may be said of this book that it does not give enough examples of unsuccessful letters. But most of us can find plenty of these in our own files. And isn’t it true that we are far less concerned with why a letter failed than in finding out what it is that makes a letter successful?

The first book on business letter writing I ever read was the "Business Correspondence Library” published by System a good many years ago. To it, and to "Applied Business Correspondence” and other books by Herbert Watson, I owe most of my theoretical knowledge of letter writing. Those familiar with Watson’s writings will recognize many of his theories in the early chapters of this book. I gladly give acknowledgment to him as the one on whose writings the groundwork of my own education in direct mail was laid.

To John Blair, President of the New Process Company of Warren, Pennsylvania, I am indebted for numberless opportunities to test my pet ideas in the only crucible that gives dependable results—actual letters sent to prospective buyers—and for the perfect records that enabled me to see which theories were workable, which better forgotten.

For many of the short paragraphs used as examples of good starters, graphic descriptions, or proper closers, I am indebted to writers like Ad-Man Davison and Ben Sweetland and to such magazines as Printers' Ink and System.

To all of these I give acknowledgment and express sincere appreciation.

THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK, N. Y. May, 1931.