Every second our brains are slammed with thousands of bits of information — mostly subconsciously. 

It’s thought our subconscious is processing roughly 11 million pieces of information PER SECOND. 

But our conscious brains can only process a teeny-weeny fraction of that. 

Scientists believe it’s about ‘40 pieces’ of information per second. 

That’s a whole lot of noise to cut through. 

To make this less abstract, the University of California, San Diego, did some number crunching…

They reckon the average American consumes about 34 gigabytes of data every day…

Which, they say, is the equivalent of reading 100,000 words. 

Which is the equivalent of reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit every day.

Oof, imagine sitting and reading all that every… single... day... Oh wait, actually that mightn’t be too bad!

Anyway, what’s this got to go with sales copy? 

Well, basically, the more information you try to load into your copy (i.e a book descriptions), the harder it is for readers to unpack. 

David Ogilvy—super famous and incredibly successful copywriter, repeatedly wrote killer ad campaigns that raked in millions—based his promotions on a single, core idea, often called “the BIG Idea”.

It was the overarching promise or benefit of the thing he was selling. 

To translate that into bookish, it’s the promise of the premise. I’ll get to a couple of book-related examples in a second…

But the Power of One isn’t just one big, central idea.

Mark Ford, a well respected reformed copywriter turned author who coached and mentored many a newbie writer back in the Noughties, said about the POWER OF ONE:

“It's a fully engaging piece of copy with five necessary elements:

• One good idea
• One core emotion
• One captivating story
• One single, desirable benefit
• One inevitable response.”

Narrowing the focus, zeroing in on one thing at a time, will make your copy stronger and stickier. 

One of the best fiction examples of this concept I can find is the copy Andy Weir’s, Project Hail Mary.

Or if you’re a non-fiction author, the book description for Dr Chris van Tulleken’s book, Ultra-Processed People, also uses the principle of the Power of One.   

In both these examples, the copy is based on one idea and a core emotion. 

Now, I could break down both examples and tell you what they are, but I want you to have a look for yourself first. 

I’m a big believer in learning by doing. 

So see if you can spot the core emotion, the big idea, the power of one at play and email me with your answer. In return, I’ll give you my breakdown. 

Sound fair?

Angie

If you spot any typos or run on sentences or dangling thingamies, please be kind and let it slide. Save your energy for something better.

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