Gary Halbert - considered by many to be one of the top modern-day copywriters, died over the Easter weekend.

I had never heard of Gary until a few years ago. However, once I started taking an interest in copywriting, Gary’s name kept coming up.

Gary was a gifted copywriter - rated by his copywriting peers as one of the best - and by himself as the best!

Gary went from broke to rich with one highly successful direct marketing campaign that made him millions. But he also had some hard times - divorce, and some time in prison - as a result of another direct mailing campaign that went sour (this after making all his money - so that must have been tough).

Gary led an interesting life. One story that amused me was when he used his copywriting skills to create a sales letter selling … himself! Tired of living alone, Gary wrote a compelling sales letter looking for an attractive female companion - and it worked.

Some of the details of Gary’s life are captured in the posts on his website.

This is an unusual looking site - http://thegaryhalbertletter.com/ A simple yellow page - with the link to the newsletter section at the bottom. The newsletter page is also unusual - a series of envelopes - and with short (sometime strange) titles. If you haven’t visited it, and want to pick up some copywriting tips from one of the modern greats, spend some time browsing through his posts. I did this a while back - and it was time well spent.

As you browse through these, you will probably find some articles that irritate or offend you. But if you persist, you will also uncover some gems. Take you time. Some of the ideas that Gary shared in these posts influenced many of our current successful copywriters - both online and offline.

I hope that Gary best posts will be archived as a resource for budding copywriters, as there’s too much value to let these disappear.

Thanks Gary for your insights and contributions. We’re going to miss you. The copywriting world is going to be a much duller place …