Issue# 2700
- WEALTHY: How to break into Hollywood (Paul Lawrence)
- HEALTHY: What’s causing your post-meal munchies? (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: Goethe on reality
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Long copy vs. short copy (John Carlton)
- Improve your writing by avoiding these gaffes (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about new psychiatric disorders
- Add “permutation” to your vocabulary
* Highly Recommended *
The Secret “Three-Step Strategy” to Internet Riches
You’ll want to read and reread the “three-step strategy” to Internet Riches very, very carefully… for it holds the secret to Internet riches beyond your wildest dreams.
I’m dead serious.
A warning before you check it out – it sounds almost too simple. But don’t let its simplicity fool you.
This strategy is so incredibly powerful… and will save you so much time, money, and energy… that you will be absolutely astonished at how much progress you’ll make when you follow it.
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Get this “three-step strategy” to Internet Riches right here.
“Few people have the imagination for reality.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Jump Into a TV Career With This Powerful Selling Tool
There are more opportunities than ever for you to sell reality show concepts to Hollywood. Virtually every broadcast and cable network is aggressively airing as many reality shows as they can.
The reason is simple. It’s cheap to produce them. And if a show catches on – like American Idol, Survivor, or The Real World - it can attract larger audiences than the most popular scripted programs.
This year, the reality show Dancing With the Stars snagged as many as 22.5 million viewers per episode. In comparison, a top-rated sitcom like How I Met Your Mother brings in about 8 million viewers.
The low cost of producing reality shows, combined with their large audiences, equals big profits. According to The Wall Street Journal, each episode of UPN’s Top Model costs about $800,000. Meanwhile, the cost of an average scripted drama is in the range of $2 million.
Why is it so much cheaper to produce reality shows? Simple. The people appearing on them can usually be paid much less than those on scripted programs. In addition, filming is usually done in the participants’ homes, which avoids expensive set construction and labor costs. And they require only a bare-bones writing staff.
If the show is a big hit, the production company can earn enormous licensing fees. The New York Times reports that the production company of American Idol had revenues that grew to $96 million last year from $67 million two years earlier, with gross profit margins expanding to 77 percent from 69 percent.
If you could get in on that kind of action, you’d not only have “made it” in Hollywood, you’d have a nice chunk of change for your “trouble.”
However, you need more than just a good idea. I’ve pitched shows to producers well over a hundred times, and I’ve found them to be surprisingly unimaginative.
They need to be shown precisely what the show will be like.
One of the best tools for doing that is a video “demo.”
Let’s use Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice as an example.
In this show, two teams of celebrities compete by performing a specified business task. The team that does it better wins. One member of the losing team is “fired.” The following week, the remaining celebrities are given another challenge – and this continues until only one celebrity is left.
The celebrities appear on the show in order to raise money for charities they support – plus, they get publicity as a result of being on nationally broadcast network TV.
Viewers watch the celebrities as they go about planning and completing the assigned task. Along the way, there is constant bickering and feuding… as well as plenty of drama.
So, if you were going to make a demo for Celebrity Apprentice, it might look like this:
1. A 30-second clip of Donald Trump telling the celebrities about their task.
2. Several quick sound bytes of celebrities speaking into the camera about how they feel about the task.
3. Some scenes of celebrities butting heads as they try to get the task done.
4. A 30-second clip of their final results.
5. Some brief squabbling while Trump berates the celebrities in the boardroom and then fires one of them.
Almost anyone can produce a demo reel. It has to look fairly professional (i.e., it can’t look like you shot it with your cellphone), but it doesn’t need to be anywhere near as polished as an actual broadcast show.
Fortunately for today’s aspiring reality show producers, high quality video equipment no longer costs an arm and a leg. A basic mini-DV camera can be bought for only a few hundred dollars – and if you don’t want to buy one, you can rent one for even less. Not only that… if you don’t want to shoot the demo yourself, there are many professional videographers out there who charge very reasonable rates.
If you’re interested in creating a video demo to pitch an idea to reality television show producers, here are some tips to get you started:
- Capture the essence of the show in no more than five minutes – three minutes would be better. Hollywood producers are incredibly pressed for time, and have no patience. If they can’t “get” what your show would be like in a few minutes, they will almost certainly stop watching and pass on the project.
- When possible and appropriate, add music to enhance the “feel” of the show. If, for example, the show is about an up and coming female martial artist, you might use high-energy rock music.
- Keep the video fast-paced, with lots of quick cuts between scenes.
- Capture some panic, anguish, excitement… something the execs can sink their teeth into.
- Use someone with a professional broadcasting voice to do a voiceover narration. If that’s not possible, just use captions to make it easy for the viewer to understand what’s going on onscreen.
If you come up with a hot idea for a reality TV show and present it to producers in a professional manner, they will take you seriously – even if they’ve never heard of you before. And, if they like your idea… you could be on your way to a new career in the entertainment industry.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a produced screenwriter who's had a multimillion-dollar film produced and released worldwide. He has signed two development deals to produce reality shows with established Hollywood television production companies. For more information on Paul's "How to Break Into Hollywood" program, just click right here.]
* Highly Recommended *
Why It Doesn’t Matter If the Markets Tumble
If you’re one of the millions of people concerned by the latest turbulence in the markets, I’ve got some good news for you.
It doesn’t matter if the markets tumble.
One investor delights when the stock market lurches up and down.
His name is Frederick James and you won’t see him on Larry King or in the Wall Street Journal.
That’s because he’s always preferred to remain part of an elite group of investors who extract their profits in the background while the masses of regular investors see their nest eggs vaporize.
But, now Frederick has decided it’s time to share the wealth. He has agreed to reveal his secrets to ETR readers. Get your special report right here.
The Classic Copywriting Argument
By John Carlton
At a seminar in San Francisco several years back, one of my fellow attendees was incredulous that people “still” read long copy online.
“That’s all changed, hasn’t it?” she asked, innocently.
With the brouhaha of Web 2.0 going strong, she can be excused for her doubts. And the fact is, if I woke up tomorrow and realized the universe had changed in such a way that a decent sales pitch no longer required persuasion, proof, credibility, believable offers, and all the other classic ingredients… and we could now create sales with just a smidgen of copy here and there, like dabs of gray ink in the colorful wonder of an over-designed Web page… well, I’d be the first one writing short copy that day.
I don’t write long copy because I like long copy.
I write long copy… because that’s what works.
You start at the beginning of your sales message… cover the points your prospect needs to hear in order to make a decision… urge him toward the right decision (to buy your stuff)… and close with panache.
When you can do that in a few terse sentences – or in a single, brief, whiz-bang video – let me know. I’ll be right on your heels with my next pitch.
After almost three decades in the front-line trenches of business, though – slogging through the fog and chaos of multiple technological upheavals – I’m not holding my breath.
[Ed. Note: John Carlton is an expert copywriter, a pioneer in online marketing, and a teacher of killer sales copy. He knows marketing inside and out. Discover how to get your hands on the kick-ass secrets of the world's smartest, happiest, and wealthiest marketers.
Great copy is vital to a successful marketing campaign. But your prospect list, product, offer... are just as important. Find out how to put them all together with Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business.]
Feel Full With Fish
Are you hungry shortly after finishing a meal? If so, your body may be telling you that you need more omega-3 fats.
In a recent study, obese and overweight participants were given a dinner that was either low or high in omega-3s (260 mg vs. 1.3 g, respectively). The researchers measured their sensations of hunger immediately after the meal and again two hours later. What they found was that those who ate the high-omega-3 meal felt fuller than those who ate the low-omega-3 meal – immediately afterward as well as two hours later.
Get the craving-controlling benefits of omega-3s by enjoying meals that feature wild salmon (1 g/3 oz), sablefish or black cod (1.2 g/3 oz), and sardines (2.8 g/can). And take a high-quality fish oil supplement like Carlson’s that provides 1.6 g/tsp. to get your daily dose of this healing fat and keep the munchies at bay.
[Ed. Note: Nutrition expert Kelley Herring - founder of Healing Gourmet - has created a revolutionary 7-part health transformation program called Your Plate, Your Fate that reveals how you can protect your health and optimize your weight by maximizing the nutrients in your food. Get all the details and learn how to get 3 bonus books right here.
For advice about which foods you should - and shouldn't - be eating to stay in top health, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.]
The Language Perfectionist: A Plethora of Errors
By Don Hauptman
As a writer on language, I’m especially sensitive to mistakes I encounter while reading. They seem to leap off the page, and I gleefully seize them as potential material for this column.
Here are some of my recent “catches,” all from major newspapers:
- “The restaurant is offering a prefix dinner menu with a choice of two courses….”
Unless the eatery also serves suffixes, the correct spelling isprix-fixe (meaning “fixed price”). This French expression can be misspelled in multiple ways, and I suspect that I’ve seen every possible permutation.
- “During those Games, [Mark Spitz] also famously tried to psyche out a Russian coach….”
The slang expression for messing with the head of an opponent, a verb, is spelled psych (and pronounced SIKE). The nounpsyche (pronounced SY-kee), refers to the mind or spirit.
- “But the details on how each [cellphone] carrier handles or transfers contacts can be a little dicey.”
The word dicey means involving danger or risk. The writer surely meant that the details were unclear or uncertain.
- “[The pastor greeted] handsome young men in his church with warm hugs and hair-tussling horseplay….”
The verb tussle means struggle or scuffle. It might make sense here, in a strained way, but the writer probably meant hair-tousling.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
It’s Fun to Know: New Psychiatric Disorders
When diagnosing patients, psychiatrists and psychologists often refer to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It’s the profession’s “bible” – and a new edition is being prepared for publication in 2012.
Many claim that the DSM’s criteria for what constitutes a mental disorder is often influenced by outside factors, including the culture of the time. An earlier edition, for example, included homosexuality.
And for the 2012 edition, there are some who argue that Internet addiction, obesity, binge eating, compulsive hoarding, and even “bitterness” should be included.
As you might expect, the pharmaceutical and insurance industries have a keen interest in what goes into the DSM. After all, when a new disease is recognized, it opens the door to new drugs. But, as always, they take a “hands-off” approach – and don’t attempt to exert their influence at all.
(Source: Los Angeles Times and Popular Science)
* Highly Recommended *
Remove Your Success Stumbling Blocks
Having trouble reaching your goals?
You might be sabotaging your efforts and not even know it.
Do you know how to reach your goals?
Have you sat down and really thought about what it’s going to take in order to achieve them?
What steps must you take to bring that dream alive?
Are your day-to-day life activities eating into the time you need to spend nurturing those goals?
Is anyone encouraging you towards the finish line of your success?
If you can’t positively answer the above questions, then stumbling blocks litter your path to success.
Before you start out on your path to success you must have a firm destination in mind and the route mapped out in advance.
Click here to learn how you can get started and stay on track…
Word to the Wise: Permutation
A “permutation” (pur-myoo-TAY-shun) – from the Latin for “exchange” – is a complete change or transformation.
Example (as used by Don Hauptman today): “This French expression can be misspelled in multiple ways, and I suspect that I’ve seen every possible permutation.”
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker... build your self-confidence and intellect... increase your attractiveness to others... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's Words to the Wise CD Library.]
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