The Copywriters Board Suddenly Goes Dark

I wandered into the Copywriters Board last year after publishing a post on World Reserve Monetary Exchange, a direct marketer that sells lots of coins and fields lots of complaints.

Actually, that's an understatement. Type "World Reserve Monetary Exchange" in Google using Internet Explorer 7 and right below the search box you'll automatically see additional words like "fraud" (with 374,000 results) and "scam" (368,000 results).

But on the Copywriters Board it was a whole other story. The advertising was hailed as "wonderful print ad copy" and "one of the best print ads I've seen all year."

Direct response copywriters were passing along tips that seemed, to this career direct marketer, out of bounds. Posters sounded like entrepreneurial copywriters with a passion for tricks that were at best marginally legal, and to a good share of consumers, clearly unethical.

It just seemed like a rough neighbhorhood. But I will say this: the posters were exceedingly polite.

Tonight I noticed Michael Fortin, the successful direct response copywriter and founder of the extremely popular Copywriters Board (by the way: none of the pro-WRME posts I read were written by Michael), has shuttered the Board for "personal reasons."

From the letter on the home page, it's obvious that Michael realized something was very wrong with the community he launched for copywriters back in the 90s. The area of the Copywriters Board I visited seemed like a haven for writers who had no problem taking advantage of old ladies. (I actually heard from a guy who believed his elderly father was ripped off by World Reserve Monetary Exchange shortly before he passed away.)

Michael Fortin has a huge following. For the sake of the direct marketing industry, if he relaunches the Copywriters Board, I hope he does something about posts that encourage misleading advertising.

Did any Freaking Marketing readers participate in the Copywriters Board, and if so, what did you think of it?

Comments

[Loren Woirhaye]

I partcipated and read the copywriter's blog from time to time. I was ambivalent about it. There was a lot of bragging even while there was a pretty good discussion of craftsmanship. I guess for some freelancers writing 2 letters in a row that make money is reason for declaring oneself on the A-list. If you are out there on your own you gotta toot your horn I reckon. Sometimes it seems as if the 'net has set direct-response back to the wiley cowboy days of the 60s and 70s when the direct-response writers were sort of th outlaws of the advertising world, thought to engage in lowly, unethical trickery by the ad-agency types... who meanwhile touted the health benefits of smoking. ;)

[Terry Brazil]

To tell you the truth I used to post on there a lot back in the day. In fact I learned a lot from that place and it game me the opportunity to run shoulders with some fairly big names.

Just today I was going to refer a new friend to check it out and noticed it was shut down. I will miss that place.

[Kelly Watson]

"Direct response copywriters were passing along tips that seemed, to this career direct marketer, out of bounds. Posters sounded like entrepreneurial copywriters with a passion for tricks that were at best marginally legal, and to a good share of consumers, clearly unethical."

It's refreshing to read this. I felt the same way about a lot of the posters on the Copywriters Board, and being relatively new to the world of direct response, I thought it was just me.

I think the world of copywriting and sales in general just attracts an abnormal amount of machismo. It's one of the aspects of my career that I'm just not very fond of.