The Boron Letters

I started to use techniques from the letter in my day-to-day work as a IT consultant. I have more than 1000 people on my mailing list. Man. Results are awesome. 45% open rate. 64% clicked call to action. Just wow.

Highly recommend reading it. Great copywriting advice, but life lessons are even better. Worth five times the price. Halbert was a singular individual in talent and opinions and his lessons preserved for his son and graciously shared with the rest of us are a modern classic.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in copywriting or marketing. It is an excellent read which will offer valuable insights to the beginner, to the expert, and anyone in between. Though Halberts' letters to his son were written almost 30-years ago, many of the lessons in this book are timeless and are therefore applicable today. I bought the Kindle version at the end of May 2013, and have only read The Boron Letters twice so far... I have a day off today, and am about to read it again (and again, again).

A window into the psychology of human motivation, timeless and extremely relevant even today. Media may change over the years, but the concepts delineated in this book do not. A MUST read for anyone serious about selling or marketing.

A window into the psychology of human motivation, timeless and extremely relevant even today. Media may change over the years, but the concepts delineated in this book do not. A MUST read for anyone serious about selling or marketing.

I love everything Halbert does. This a a quick read that is full of great nuggets of information. Highly suggest this. I wish my dad had wrote me letters like this. The life tips and marketing tips are just great.

The Boron Letters is very well written with lots of great material. However, the physical copy of the book that I received from the store looks like it was printed in an elementary school classroom.

The text on the cover is obviously pixelated and blurry, the cover is cheap and wavy, and the pages feel like they're made out of the cheapest printing paper imaginable. I was shocked that such a highly regarded book would be printed with such low quality. I was hoping to display it on my bookshelf but this will likely get recycled when I'm done with it. Should have gotten the kindle version.

The Boron Letters is one of those books that could literally change your business if you implement what Gary shares. You would be doing yourself a HUGE disservice if you didn't pick up this book full of gold from one of the best, ever.

Overall I thought the stuff in here was worth thinking about and could fairly easily be adapted to modern marketing (email and landing pages especially.)

However, the book was full of promotion for Halbert's website, (he exhorts you to visit the website at the end of almost every chapter), there were numerous typos and odd phrases, and the whole thing felt un-polished. For example, the front cover is a low-res image. You can see giant pixels in the printed version. That's not what I would call a sign of professionalism. In fact, if this book were a sales pitch according to the content of the book, it would violate at least a few of the guru's dictates.

It's a useful book, especially if you are new to marketing, you'll get a ton out of it. It's a quick read and all or nearly all of the advice is good if you can figure out how to apply it. But, it's got some flaws that are hard to excuse when I paid over $20 for the damn thing.

Even after his death, Gary Halbert manages to garner new fans. This a great book with valuable updates from Bond Halbert, Gary's son. Teaches you a lot about copyrightind and also about life. Loved it!

Am about half way through, and because this is some years old and many marketers have read and used these ideas since... it seems quite familiar, not so new. It's a good insight into Gary's mind... but I still have to finish reading it

Not my favorite read. There were a few usable thoughts throughout for business. I don't think it was meant to be a well written book it is a compilation of letters from prison by the father. Technology has changed since those were written so at the end of the chapters the updates by the son helped to make sense of things.

Not my favorite read. There were a few usable thoughts throughout for business. I don't think it was meant to be a well written book it is a compilation of letters from prison by the father. Technology has changed since those were written so at the end of the chapters the updates by the son helped to make sense of things.

Good book, some tips are interesting, some others are not really updated, others are too much general and not detailed.

Good but not the life changing book the author promises in the beginning of the book, in my humble opinion...

Gianluca

It is mostly promotion for the Halbert website. He mentions using Standard Rate and Data as a guide to placing print advertising for print offers. Very much last century direct mail marketing. Instead I would recommend any of Sugarman's books for meaty descriptions of how to create compelling offers.

There's some info about making money out there that never makes it into print.

For everything Warren Buffett has said and written, don't you think he's holding back a few gems for his children?

That's what sets this book apart. Gary Halbert wrote it for his son Bond, when he was in prison for a long, long time (in Boron, California -- hence the title).

The fact that he chose to publish it at all is quite remarkable by itself.

I first read a portion of what's in this book in 1989, as part of what was to me at the time a humongously expensive home-study course called "Your Marketing Genius At Work." It cost $495 (the equivalent of about $943 in 2013).

I have to say that it may have been the turning point where I started down the path towards direct marketing and advertising copywriting. It was certainly one of them. (Another one was attending Gary's famous "Hurricane Andrew" seminar a few years later.)

You can read classics like the works of Claude Hopkins, John Caples, and David Ogilvy -- and you should. But they are all somewhat formal and impersonal.

This may be the most personal master-class in direct marketing copywriting you will ever read.

The one portion of this book I didn't get to read in 1989: All of the updates Bond Halbert, Gary's son, added to the original text.

Bond is a quiet genius who is by no means a carbon copy of his dad. Instead, he's part of the next generation of Halberts.

He and his brother Kevin pick up where Gary (who died seven years ago) left off.

I can't recommend this highly enough. No matter what kind of marketing you do, there's information in here you'd have a very tough time finding anywhere else.

It's truly a modern classic, and simply experiencing the way Gary writes makes this book worth many, many times its modest selling price.

But the ideas conveyed and the mindset demonstrated make this book just about priceless.

As I started The Boron Letters, the first thing that struck me was the date - June 12, 1984. And he explains the date, the setting and everything involved around it. Gary is in Prison - Boron State Prison in California. No excuses as to why he is there. But that he is writing these letters to his son Bond in order to "make hay" in a bad situation. Not only will he review some of the Marketing genius strategies that have made him a success, but that he is doing it to help teach his son his craft of Direct Mail Copywriting.

It reminded me so vividly of what I was doing at that time in 1984. I was 1 year older than Bond and in the process of rehabbing from brutal surgery. I remember it was hot in Southern California at the time. And I imagine what a step up on the world I would have had to receive such a gift of knowledge at that time in my life. And over 30 years later, this same teaching is still not only relevant, but invaluable. This is a must read for anyone who seeks to make their fortune in copywriting.

Colin Theriot shared a link.
about an hour ago
[BUSINESS BOOK REACTIONS] The late Gary Halbert is a copywriting legend. Which is like saying, "The Sun is hot."

Like most entrepreneurs, he was a risk-taker, and like everyone, he hit a bad patch. The kind that you get locked up for, unfortunately.

But like most legends, Gary took the poop life handed him and made poop-ade. While paying his debt to society, Gary wrote a series of raw, unfiltered letters to his young son, Bond.

Later, Gary published this collection of letters as a book, called "The Boron Letters," named for the place he wrote them.

This book, more than any of his other work, is what cemented his legacy in our industry (IMO).

Because of the way the letters are written, father to son, covering topics of life, health, business, and selling - Gary positioned himself as a permanent father figure to all budding copywriters.

And that is one of my FAVORITE things about this recent Kindle version of Gary's book.

Bond Halbert, the original recipient of these letters, has grown up and followed in his father's footsteps into the copywriting and marketing business.

And what he shares here, letter by letter, is the real life context of his dad's career and life - before, during, and after they were written.

Often, the facts contradict the perceptions Gary creates in the letters.

But what this serves to do is highlight HOW Gary created these perceptions, almost subliminally.

For the first time, despite having read this book at least three times before, I am able to contrast the source with the copy.

Bond's additions have given me the epiphany that "The Boron Letters" is essentially the sales letter for "Gary Halbert, copywriting legend"... And now you can see how that legend was created by Gary Halbert the man.

Does this new release diminish Gary's legend? Maybe to some people who can no longer enjoy magic tricks once they know the secret to performing them.

But what it doesn't diminish - and in fact only amplifies - is Gary's genius as a marketer and self promoter.

It's like suddenly being able to see every chisel stroke Michelangelo made to carve his "David". So you know not only the good bits the artist wanted you to see, but the bad bits that were chipped and polished away.

Those choices, made by the artist, are what determines whether they get forgotten, or whether they live forever in memory.

And this re-release is a study of not only the work, but the artist, and those deliberate choices.

Kudos to Bond. RIP, Gary the man. Long live Gary the legend. Buy the book.

Oil change at the dealership. No book. Pulled out my phone and began reading the Kindle version. Bond's commentary pushes the work to a whole other level. Incredible stuff. I ordered the hard copy version tonight. My plan is to coerce my 12-year-old son into reading along with me. Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Bond. Thank you, Lord.

Gary Halbert was a copywriting, direct marketing and mail order genius. This accounting of how he did his time in prison and how he made that time count by writing letters to guide his son toward a good, successful and disciplined life is inspiring. There are also some essential lessons on the copywriting process. This is a rare and revealing work about human psychology from someone who was going through and making the best of a tough situation, and someone who regularly made his living by understanding human psychology to sell. Stuart C. Marmorstein, D.C.

If your goal is to build a legitimate business or be a legitimate advertiser or to have a life worth living, than this book is not for you. It is full of out-dated methods of chicanery and trickery to try to compel people into parting with their money without giving them anything of value in return. Just like this book did to me. Most of the info, if not all, is available online anyway for free.

I received an original copy of the Boron Letters in Gary's own handwriting bound in a large book in 1990. It was absolutely great - a perfect primer for anyone wanting to learn DM. Having treasured that book for 15 years, I wrote to Gary in 2005 and suggested he turn it into an actual book on starting out in DM. I also suggested if he didn't want to, I would like to do it, giving him credit for all the thoughts and ideas. He wrote back giving me his blessing. At that time he had also uploaded all the letters to his garyhalbertletter.com website where they still are today. I wrote my book and sent Gary a copy in late 2005. Unfortunately he died in 2006 before I had time to publish it. I wrote to Kevin shortly after Gary's death to advise him of my intention to publish this book and he replied asking me to wait until things settled down. Well you would think that nearly 7 years later things would have settled down, but I am still waiting. You can get all the 25 letters directly from Gary's old site (just scroll through the archives 'til you find them. And you will not have to pay $9.99 for them in an ill formed kindle version. My version of the great Gary Halbert's Boron letters, with the Master's personal blessing, will be released within the next few weeks. It's title is "The Amazing Roadmap to Success in Direct Marketing" with the sub-title "A Distillation of Gary Halbert's Boron Letters" plus The Wisdom and Experiences of Leslie Sprankling, Australian Entrepreneur and Marketer plus a Selection of Robert Collier's Famous Sales Letters and some of his Insightful Quotations.

Gary's letters to his son Bond were, and still are, great. I recommend you get them. But why pay for an inferior version in kindle format when you can get them all free from the Master's website garyhalbertletter.com?