Why the print book & newsletter biz is dead for most marketers

Or, at the very least, effectively frozen in carbonite like Han Solo. Here’s what I mean: Over the last couple years especially… several people both from my email list (and most recently on Twitter) have been asking me how to go about morphing their current info publishing business into a business like mine with a print newsletter, selling print books, etc. And with rare exception I try to warn people away from it. Here’s why: The costs are way higher than they were even a few years ago thanks to inflation plus a worldwide paper shortage according to my printer last I checked. Plus, the logistics of shipping & delivery are different and far more expensive than selling purely digital. Currently, I do not heavily promote my elBenbo Press book about my publishing methodology because most people on my list or who follow me on Twitter are not ready for it — as they don't even have an email list (just a twitter or facebook following). And they really think they can do it just by spanking out tweets all day behind a cartoon avatar, and not do all the hard work of aggressively growing and mailing a legally opted-in to list, and that was not scraped together with a bunch of cold addresses. Then there’s the writing side of the print newsletter business. Everyone wants to have written, yet nobody wants to write. But if you are going to do a print newsletter you gotta write, and learn to love writing (and learn to love deadlines), and make it something you’d do even if you didn’t have to do it. You literally live and die by your writing in any kind of publishing business like I have. Some foolishly think they can “prompt” that sort of thing with tools like fapGPT. But people know fools gold when they see it. Dan Kennedy has long talked about how you can’t even let someone else write in your voice (a human, much less a machine) and get away with it for very long when it comes to a print newsletter. And, as usual, he’s right. My boys & ghouls in Email Players would not tolerate me pulling that nonsense. Something else to think about: If you are going to be in the print publishing business it helps to think like a publisher and not like a writer or “content creator” or copywriter or digital agency owner or coach or consultant or freelancer or anything else. Otherwise you’re just going to hit a ceiling real fast. I know this because I made that mistake myself for the first 6 or 7 years of publishing a print newsletter during my "one email per day" phase. It was fun, and very low stress, but not-at-all sustainable. And it put a definite limit on sales potential. Whatever the case, here’s my doom n’ gloom opinion: I think it’s only going to be harder and harder to launch and sustain a print model for the vast majority of marketers and businesses. I’ve spent the last nearly 15 years selling various print subscription offers and have things dialed in pretty good. But without that foundation and without everything in place like I have things now, I almost (not totally — because they should know better) feel sorry for people jumping in the print game thinking it’s going to be easy and fun because maybe I make it look easy and fun each day (?), when for most it will be the exact opposite. More: This is why I tell anyone who asks me about it these days I’d go with a digital subscription offer — pdf, mobile app hosted content like we offer at Learnistic or social media hosted (like we offer at SocialLair and you can see in "real time" how it works at our Low Stress Trading site), membership site hosted content, paid videos, paid podcast… anything BUT print or physically-delivered offers. And this is especially the case if you’re milquetoast about growing an email list (a social media following is nice, but it’s not nearly as good or stable or reliable or protected from big tech shenanigans as an email list) and mailing it aggressively each and every day. You can get away with some laziness & flakiness selling a digital subscription offer. But not so with a physical newsletter. Unless, maybe, you have a gigantic following so you can replace churn as fast as it happens. But even then, churn is another thing that catches people by surprise. But even that is not as big a deal with digital as it is with physical - as with physical you’re dealing with printing costs, fulfillment costs, shipping costs (going through the roof right now), blown deadlines from vendors you rely on, software glitches, flakey delivery people (getting worse by the month) and the list goes on. In fact, here is a comment I recently got about this about delivery alone: “We have just started to sell print newsletter 2 months ago, and now I understand what the pain in the ass all this delivery stuff is.” He ain’t wrong. There are a handful of people it actually costs me to send to when you factor in printing, shipping, and fulfillment - unless I charge them shipping, etc, which I have so far resisted doing. But, even by generously paying peoples' shipping, I still get a few greedy and cheap-minded dinks - most of them in the EU - who think because I offer free shipping then that means I’m supposed to pay their country's customs/delivery fees, too. Probably next they will ask me to pay their taxes while I am at it. The countries that require an "invoice" are especially grating. I am not going to create a special invoice for every customer in every different country, based on each of their government's invoicing requirements. People can either fugking copy & paste the receipt the carts sends upon the sale and/or when Email Players bills them each month into a template or cancel their subscription and go haunt someone else. This is just one of many reasons I am aggressively banning EU countries like it's a sport. But it ain't just the EU getting into the act. In 10 years — assuming the US is still even a country, which I don't think it will be — I strongly suspect I will only be selling to the US and a few, select other countries not run by communists. And even in the US I will probably end up banning entire states going by the sheeple-like voting patterns of their people, their openly corrupt bureaucrats that make doing business more trouble than it's worth, and their growing regulations. I would not be shocked if California, for example, starts sending you a tax bill or claiming nexus just for sending a FedEx package that travels through that state to someone in another state. People might chuckle or shake their heads at that. But it’s probably more true than not. Anyway, it is just not worth the trouble in some cases. Bottom line? I recommend go digital, get that dialed in, then toy with print later if you still want to. My too many sense… But whichever model you use (print, digital, whatever…) if you want to learn some of my best tricks of the trade for the content creation & monetization side then see the April Email Players issue. It contains some of my all-time best advice, ideas, strategies, and tactics for creating and monetizing content — and I daresay you aren’t hearing about this sort of thing from the bois haunting social media all day. Personally, I am curious to see what happens when my subscribers use it. I’ve been sitting on teaching a lot of this info for years in some cases. But I’m letting the Content Kraken loose in April. That is, if you are subscribed. And, most importantly, subscribed by tomorrow’s deadline. To get in while there is still a little time left go here immediately: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Here’s a lil’ taste of what’s inside this King-Sized issue: * A content creation secret used by famous actor Gary Cooper to turn otherwise boring, ordinary, bland, and totally “plain vanilla” scenes into fascinating & memorable moments people remembered for years afterwards. (Especially useful if content you sell is otherwise easily found free on YouTube or Google.) * A shrewd way used by everyone from Dr. Seuss to Mister Rogers to even Quentin Tarantino… for creating content people love to pay for and consume even if it’s not mind-blowingly original. * The “fights are bullshit” secret for writing emails that can potentially make lots of sales even if you hardly even mention your product or offer at all. (This is directly from the writer who helped make The X-Men a household name and a billion dollar IP for Marvel Comics. And it can work like a charm when creating other kinds of content, too — from sales copy and emails to books, courses, talks, and everything in between.) * An old school writing trick for making your content so compulsively engaging & hard to stop reading/watching/listening to it might even piss people off! (No joke — doing this not only pisses off Stefania whenever she reads or edits my content… but it even irked my book designer when she was creating the interiors of one of my books.) * 7 ingenious ways (based on what Dungeons & Dragons in the 80’s did to help stop IP theft in its tracks) to aggravate & foil content pirates who are probably drooling right now at the chance to steal and sell your hard work. * The “Scorsese touch” content creation & monetization secret I’ve been using for the last several years to help write emails that sell like crazy without having to constantly hard pitch my offers. (Including helping me sell scads of my perfect bound books that look like they should sell for $13 at Barnes & Noble for as much as a $1,000+ a pop…) * A content creation trick (that's gone all but extinct since the rise of “Influencer” culture) that can help you sell your offers on the sneak inside your content. (I also show you an example of an email doing this that got the highest clicks, opens, & sales for us during a highly competitive affiliate campaign… even though it barely even talks about “the product” or benefits or has all that many claims.) * 2 things amateur copywriters, coaches, & online marketers can do (starting immediately) to help grow a bigger and more influential business than their more talented & well-connected peers and competitors. (These are the exact 2 things I did over 20 years ago to quickly blow right past a lot of my own more talented, better connected, and far superior copywriter and/or marketer peers.) * A cunning way to craft content that can help your business stand out head & shoulders in niches overrun with competition and distractions. * An ancient kung fu fighting tip (used by the late, great copywriter Jim Rutz did a lot in his ads, believe it or not...) that can help make even the most mundane, ordinary, and typical content/information look & feel exciting and sexy. * A 3-point content creation approach pioneered by Earl Nightingale (when he was a radio broadcaster in Chicago) and later perfected by Dan Kennedy (when speaking on the Peter Lowe tour) that can help get your content ridiculously high engagement & sales. * Why always trying to be contrarian or a “rebel” is a recipe for ending up ignored at best or even an abject failure in the content creation game at worst. * How to use your content to seize the coveted “cat bird seat” (i.e., he to whom business seems to flow effortlessly) in your industry. (Old school Mad Men like Olgilvy, Burnett, Norman, Foote, Cone, etc were pros at doing this — and it’s one reason why each had their own horde of clients who gravitated just to them, only wanted to hire them, and often didn’t care how much it cost.) * How to approach content creation in a way where your name and brand can be all but “infused” so strongly in your customers’ braincells they start seeing you almost everywhere and almost in everything they look at! (I won’t say doing this is easy — it’s not — but it is the big secret to how you achieve true marketplace omnipotence where your content can spread to the four corners of the earth and all but sell itself.) * How to summon energy & excitement “on demand” to create content when you don’t feel like it, don’t want to it, and it feels like such a chore you’d rather be doing ANYTHING else but creating content. (The late Heath Ledger tapped into this phenomenon to help create his most memorable performance as the Joker. And I've been using for a long time to pound out all kinds of content even when I'd rather be doing something else. You can, too, if you take this approach to heart, apply it, and work hard at it.) All right that’ll do it. If you want in on time for this issue you have to hurry. Once the deadline hits it’ll be too late. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA