Rant warning: what follows may offend some people. But I wanted to throw in my three cents on the topic of “forced continuity,” which seems to be the subject of a lot of debate these days.

Several well-known marketers have made offers of late with forced continuity. What it means is, the intended product you want to buy can only be purchased when you buy another (often, a continuous subscription) billed to your account every month or so until you cancel.

Forced continuity is nothing new. (In direct marketing, they call these “Til Forbid” offers.) It’s another type of offer, pure and simple. It’s marketing. And there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is not the way the offer is made.

The real problem is its lack of transparency.

But that’s not what I want to rant about today.

What a lot of people seem to be missing here (and something my brilliant wife brought to my attention, which makes perfect sense to me), is that there is a deeper, much darker side to this whole thing.

Something all marketers need to be aware of…

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Last week was incredibly exhausting, to say the least.

(Stick around, because I will soon show you how you benefit from our unbelievable “flight-from-hell”.)

On our way to California to speak, we left a day early so that we can have an extra day to work on our presentation before the seminar starts.

We had a layover in Chicago, and our plane was delayed due to mechanical problems. Obviously, we missed our connecting flight to California.

Luckily, the Chicago Airport Hilton was nearby. So we stayed there overnight. Our luggage was still checked, which is fine. Hilton provided emergency supplies, such as toothbrushes and such, to keep us going in the meantime.

We then left for California the next morning.

Everything went well. The seminar was great. But when we left early Monday morning, an incredible series of events followed that seemed to be nothing short of a scene from a Tom Hanks’ movie.

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Just an update on things.

I’m typing this from my hotel room in Anaheim, California, where my wife and I are speaking at a seminar. My Internet connection is shoddy and intermittent, so I can’t do much right now. Even typing this blog post feels like pulling teeth.

To my coaching students, I will be answering your emails once I return to my office, or this weekend if I have a chance and the connection improves.

I will be back early next week, posting an explosive new article on how to double or even triple your profits using an amazing twist on something we already do as copywriters and business owners.

In the meantime, glide on over to my new site, Copywriters Library, where I have over 6 hours of audio interviews with master copywriters Gary Halbert and John Carlton, and 2 of my complete books reprinted free for you.

I couldn’t talk about this when I first learned about it, but now that it’s public I wanted to pass the info along.

You may or may not know Julie Perry.

She’s a very dear friend of mine, a well-known Internet marketer, and an entrepreneur. We constantly see each other at seminars and always have a great time. She’s always laughing, fun to be with, and a great person.

If you can’t picture her, to help you here’s a photo of the both of us — you might have seen her at Internet marketing seminars, yourself:

She’s known for her love of boats. She’s written a book on yachting, and she’s also the host of TheBoaters.tv, a website for yachters and boat lovers.

Now, the sad news…

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Since the new year is right around the corner, bloggers and marketers alike are posting their predictions as if a psychics convention has come to town.

So in keeping with that tradition, I’d like to post a few of my own. But unlike those who post their predictions in point form, I won’t make a specific list but rather share with you some of my thoughts.

(Near the end, however, this post will culminate in what I believe will be three major trends to watch out for and dive into, if you want to make some serious money in 2008 and beyond.)

First off, let me state that you may or may not agree with me on these. But something is definitely going on right now that points to these three trends. All the clues are pretty evident, and you’ve probably seen some of these yourself.

What I’m talking about is…

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What a fantastic call tonight! I grilled radio copywriting expert Dan O’Day for a little more than an hour on how to write effective radio advertising that gets maximum results.

Again, this one-hour teleseminar was to support our upcoming, intensive 2-day workshop in Los Angeles on how to write compelling copy for multimedia. (Which we only mentioned at the tail-end of the call.)

As promised, here’s the one-hour interview recording.

Click here to download and listen to the MP3.

It’s around the corner! More and more people are registering to come to my upcoming seminar on multimedia copywriting with Dan O’Day.

You already know who I am, but you probably don’t know Dan, who’s my “secret weapon” when it comes to audio and radio copy.

Dan is the world’s leading expert on radio advertising, which just happens to be the single most effective mass medium for driving targeted traffic to a website.

Well, Dan agreed to do a special teleseminar for you this Wednesday.

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