Talk Biz News
Talk Biz News is a newsletter written by Paul Myers, a long time internet
marketer who's been writing it since 1996. I first learned about it through Chris Pirillo's
Lockergnome newsletter four years ago, and immediately subscribed to
it.
What's it really about? Well, most of the time he tells a story and pitches a product while telling it. In the last four issues,
he's pitched his new book on creativity called The Idea Spot, a report by someone else called Fortune at Your
Fingertips, and another book on writing articles for marketing written by another person. I'm not sure how well he knows
these guys or what his cut is, outside of his own book, but I do know that most of the items he mentions are relatively
inexpensive; the last two items are $10 each, which his book is coming in around $48 dollars.
I'm not usually a guy who wants the primary focus of a newsletter to be a pitch for a product, yet there's something different
in how he writes and the offers he makes. For one, as I said, most of what he finds isn't all that expensive. It's almost
nothing to toss $10 away to learn something that might help make you money, as opposed to the $79 or $149 books that most of
these internet marketers are trying to push your way.
Second, the production of his newsletter isn't anything to write home about; it's very simple text, a fairly easy and short read,
and if it weren't for the link you'd think there was hardly anything there, unless you're paying attention. After all, I did say
he was a premier internet marketer.
Third, one of the best lessons I ever got from him was a particular newsletter he wrote where he wasn't pushing a product at all,
but a concept. It was called "Thud
Factor", and he talked about how it's hard to convince people that something small could actually be worth a lot of money.
In that article, he also gave ideas how one could package a whole lot of things, different versions of the same thing, so as to
create the illusion that someone was getting way more than what they were asking for, and that it may not cost you much more in
time or money to produce it. Such as putting a book on audio and video tape, throwing in a lot of reports you'd already written
for free, along with other free things that the internet is replete with, etc. I thought his concept was right on the money,
and I've kept it in my mind whenever I've worked with anyone, or tried to create something new. I even wrote him back then to
thank him for the article, and he wrote back, thanking me for saying something nice about it.
If there's a gripe, it's that he has no regular schedule for when you'll see it. For many people, that's a blessing, because no
one wants to read one particular newsletter every single day. The last four newsletters all came within 20 days of each other;
before that, the last one received was probably three months ago, since that's around the time I last cleaned out my trash bin.
He offers pretty good stuff from what I've seen, and I've even purchased a few of the things he's highlighted.
I recommend the Talk Biz News newsletter, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have over the years.
