They say copy should feel like a letter from a friend… 

(They’re right. Copy should feel as casual and comfortable, as familiar and appropriate and typical as a letter from someone you’ve known and cared about for a while.)

They say your copy should sound like a conversation you might overhear in a bar… 

Or on a bus. 
Or in a barbershop. 
Or in someone’s kitchen.

(Imagine being invisible and walking into a family home during dinner and listening to Mom and Dad and Junior trade stories about their day. That’s the sound of good copy.)

They also say writing this way is hard. 

(It is.) 

And takes practice. 

(It does.)

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Writing your own sentences is 50% of the practice. 

The other 50% is reading someone else’s sentences, the right sentences, conversational sentences, the kind you someday want to write.

(You are what you eat.)

New copywriters ask me how to write more conversational sentences a lot. 

“How do I write more conversationally,” they say. 

“You can read and transcribe this book,” I say back. 

Then I send them a link to Reach for the Sun by Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite authors. His novels and poems are so simple — simple words, simple sentences, simple ideas — and yet so vivid and relatable and memorable. 

Reach for the Sun isn’t a novel or a book of poetry. It’s a collection of personal letters from Bukowski. 

Here’s one to his daughter, Marina:

I love this love letter. 

(And it is a love letter, you know.) 

I love it because it’s tender and sweet yet void of tender, sweet words. 

(I imagine Marina smiled when she read it. Don’t you?)

And because it’s conversational. That is, it reads the way Bukowski talks. 

Anyway…

I transcribed this letter. Took me about 5 minutes. Will you do the same?

Try it. Then get the book (I won’t make any money if you do; this is for you) and transcribe another one. And another. And another. Keep going. 

Keep going and someday soon you’ll be a better conversational writer, a better copywriter. 

LEARN TO PERSUADE

WRITE BETTER.
MARKET BETTER.
SELL MORE.

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Judge not lest ye be judged.