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FOREWORD Welcome to the most sought after direct marketing masterpiece. This book was recently selling for over $900 dollars used—so I decided to re-issue it. It is a real privilege to bring Gene Schwartz's advertising wisdom back into print. We built a wonderful business based on his wisdom. He was a special delight and a treat to know—Gene was 6'2" and reminded me of Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead. But Gene had much more charm and wit and a fabulous, unforgettable smile. Exciting sight—watching the multi-talented genius's fingers flying over the keyboard creating another brilliant ad. And then he'd sit back with that great smile, read it over and enjoy it more and more. Gene wrote advertising copy lor the best direct marketers in America. And then he published a book in 1964 titled Hoxc to Double Your Child's Grades in School, following up with How to Double Your Power to Learn and then Breakthrough Advertising in 1966. He was very clever—he exchanged his copywriting for access to mailing list names and promoted his own books to them! But then Gene had a stroke in 1978 and he had trouble typing . . . for it affected his right side. But he worked and iii IV FOREWORD worked until he became quite proficient typing with just his left hand. My big idea—Retain Gene as a business consultant instead of a copywriter to guarantee him a regular income. He became very important to us in that new role. l i e helped very much in the creation of the Bottom Line/Personal concept and of our editorial style. Awesome. Then there was Gene III, the scientist, always reading the leading-edge science books and belonging to a very sophisticated group that met weekly to discuss the implications of those scientific advances on society. Finally, there was Gene IV—an amazing talent as an art collector, together with his wife Barbara, a famous interior designer. They built a fabulous art collection betting on Hans Hoffman Morris Lewis, Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Milton Averv well before anyone else had heard of them. Their first acquisition was by the color-pioneer Hans Hoffman. It took me years to appreciate Hoffman's work. Barbara also helped me build an incredible collection of photographs that are now at the Art Institute of Chicago. On my first gallery tour with them—I discovered a crumpled photo by the Starn twins that had two words on i t Confusion/Order. That is what I'm devoted t o - b r i n g i n g order from confusion. So Barbara and I built a very exciting Lessons in Life collection. I was her first art advisory client. And it is with her generous permission that we bring Gene's classic book back into the world. Martin Edelston Founder and President. Boardroom Inc. Publisher of Bottom Line/Personal January 2004 PREFACE TO THE BOARDROOM EDITION This book was first published in 1966—what seems to be three lifetimes ago. It was put out bv Prentice-Hall, a marvelous house: it sold onlv a few thousand copies. But since it was published I have had people coming to me regularly to tell me that thev directlv credit reading this book with their making millions of dollars. This is amazing enough, but even more remarkable is the fact that—when I look back on it—not a single one of these people was a copywriter. Here is a book that is called Breakthrough Advertising . . . and yet was used bv men who were not in the business of advertising at all, to make more monev than most of us ever dream of accumulating. How did this happen? Whv was a publisher, a financier, a manufacturer of novelties, able to make so very much monev with a book that is about putting sentences together? (The financier told me that, within one vear after obtaining the book, he had raised his net worth from $100.000 to $10 million). Are the sentences contained in the pages that follow actually that powerful? Can they change the fortunes of men so radical