The Bill Jayme Collection (Find out if you really want to be FILTHY RICH. Take this test.)

One of my favorite direct mail letters starts off:

"Dear Reader,

It was Scott Fitzgerald who observed, "The rich are different from us."

It was Ernest Hemingway who then shot back, "Yes. They have more money."

…so before you accept this invitation to move up higher financially, you may want to consider some of the pros and cons."

The letter then has two columns listing the "disadvantages of being rich" and "the advantages of being rich."

Ten disadvantages are cited in the left column, including, "You'll start hearing from long lost cousins looking for loans."

The right column is barren space, till you turn to the next page, where you see circled in red, "You'll have tons more money."

This and 209 other direct mail masterpieces await you when you crack open one of the most important direct marketing packages to be released this year.

It's called "The Bill Jayme Collection."

But don't expect a deluge of emails announcing this landmark collection from the Internet marketing hucksters.

There won't be any since there's no kickback invloved.

While on the subject, the term launch has almost become a pejorative.

You know what I'm talking about.

"Our servers have crashed due to the flood of orders but we'll be re-opening tomorrow to offer the final 100 copies…so hurry."

The email message is then regurgitated a dozen times before it fades away. Till the next "new thing."

Internet marketing launches don't add up to chump change compared to the dozens of magazines launched by team Jayme and Ratalahti. One of them, for American Health, brought in 250,000 paid subscriptions and allowed the publisher to exit with $29 million in 1990.

I'm almost tempted to invoke Guy Kawasaki's testimonial for Brenda Ueland's book, If You Want To Write: "If you buy this book and it doesn’t help you, I will give you your money back."

The New York Times Magazine article, "Junk Mail's Top Dogs," on Jayme and Ratalahti.

The Bill Jayme Collection: Master of Direct Mail Marketing.