Your first sales letter won't be your last.

Even when I'm working on the same product or service, my letter evolves to understand the customer's problems. I hear expressions I would never have thought of myself. I get testimonials I want to use to enhance my credibility.

The Unix philosophy helps write sales letters that are modular, adaptable, and ready to change.

I keep my sales letter modular, so I can easily update it from time to time.

1) Write programs that do one thing and do it well.

In the sales letter, the programs are the sections.

Their job is to do one thing only but do it well, like the refund policy you use to reduce resistance. You can use this standalone section in multiple places in your sales letter.

2) Write programs that work together.

Don't let it spill over into another section if you start with an idea in one section.

This will help you keep the boundaries that make the section more modular. You can reuse topic phrases in different sections to strengthen overall cohesion.

3) Write programs that can handle text streams because this is a universal interface.

There are skim and read streams.

People skim the text and don't read it at the beginning. You need to get them from skimming to reading using headings, images, and bulleted lists. After that, they start reading the sales letter once they get past the skimming stage.

In the reading stage, you can help them by using subheadings like

• "Let me explain",

• "What does this mean?",

• "How does this work?"