The life of Joe Karbo, the greatest mail order book writer and self-publisher of all time, has some valuable lessons, which will make all the difference between success and failure for any online writer.
Joe Karbo’s life is not only a great inspiration but can also be highly instructive to any would-be online writer.
Joe Karbo’s Biography And Desperate Online Writers
Joe Karbo was virtually bankrupt in 1973, the year he wrote and published his famous book, Lazy Man’s Way to Riches. It is a fact that many online writers today hardly have anything to show for their efforts. There are those who work very hard in return for a handful of dollars and there are those who cannot even find any assignments online that will earn them even a few dollars. In this group, there has to be those who are desperate and bankrupt. Folks who launched their online writing careers to try and get themselves out of the deep hole they are in.
Joe Karbo’s brief biography will prove to you that it can be done. It will also show you exactly how. I admit that that this is quite a loaded statement, especially when you consider the fact that Karbo died before the World Wide Web came along.
Because Karbo was in such a desperate financial situation in 1973, he was keenly aware of a few hard facts. Firstly he needed a product to sell that would give him a very high mark-up, but also one where he could create a selling system for that would generate an endless supply of sales leads and then turn as big a percentage as possible, of those leads into actual sales.
Joe Karbo was to later admit that the 10 dollar paperback that made him rich cost him only 50 cents to produce.
One thing he had going for him was that during his checkered career up to that point, he had developed a keen understanding of human nature. This is the most valuable asset that any writer can have.
There are two possible things that can happen to a desperate person. Either they get very confused unfocused and start running around in circles (sound familiar?). Or they can focus very sharply on one particular thing that they believe will help get them out of trouble. And they then hang on to it, so tenaciously that you will have to kill them first to get them off it. This second option has resulted in many inventions and the pure genius that has birthed many great life-changing ideas.
For Joe Karbo it not only made him rich and famous but he was able to achieve a record that to this day has yet to be broken. Lazy Man’s Ways To Riches sold well over 3 million copies without seeing the inside of any book store. It was all sold via mail order.
The Joe Karbo Self-publishing Technique
But let’s back-up a little to see how he did it because it will help any online writer to learn something that they can immediately apply to their online writing and self publishing enterprise.
Karbo started off with a single tiny ad (all he could afford) crowded with lots of tiny text. The typical direct marketing ad and the sort of thing that makes any ad designer want to throw-up. Fortunately folks who read his ad did not want to throw up.
