People made money off this because, by sending for their ‘free’ booklet, you are in fact providing three valuable pieces of information about yourself in exchange:
A. You are a socially insecure person;
B. You are willing to believe that mail-order gimmicks can solve your problems;
C. In order to get the booklet, you gave them your name and address.
So for the minimal expense of sending out a free brochure, the company now has a mailing list composed exclusively of self-conscious, extremely gullible people. They follow up by mailing those people endless catalogs for self-help scams and gimmicks that actually cost money.
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14 users responded in this post
They sold people a book, from the sounds of things.
If this were available today I would send it to so many people.
They made money off of me. I am a bore.
“They made money off of me. I am a bore.”
How interesting! Tell me more!!
If they’re mailing out the booklet itself for free, it’s probably an evangelical tract of some kind.
Would you rather be a bore or a screw?
Looks like the people who made those “Shamed By Your English?” ads started branching out a bit.
Ah, vintage linkbait.
“The secret to being more interesting in conversation is . . . to be sure to drink your Ovaltine”
Is this really all that different from all those “learn how to talk to people” self-help books?
People made money off this because, by sending for their ‘free’ booklet, you are in fact providing three valuable pieces of information about yourself in exchange:
A. You are a socially insecure person;
B. You are willing to believe that mail-order gimmicks can solve your problems;
C. In order to get the booklet, you gave them your name and address.
So for the minimal expense of sending out a free brochure, the company now has a mailing list composed exclusively of self-conscious, extremely gullible people. They follow up by mailing those people endless catalogs for self-help scams and gimmicks that actually cost money.
“A well-known publisher mom from [YOURTOWN] found one weird trick that drives bores crazy!”
“Impress people fast with this one weird old trick!”
“If they’re mailing out the booklet itself for free, it’s probably an evangelical tract of some kind.”
And free evangelical tracts are one of the most obnoxious items ever put on paper.