One of the best-selling books of recent years never hit the bookstore racks. Joe Karbo's The Lazy Man's Way to Riches has sold over three million copies worldwide since ads boasting of his life of ease on the beach first appeared fourteen years ago. All were peddled through the mail, according to the president of the firm.

1.  It is not listed in Books in Print.  Karbo died a millionaire in 1980, but few knew he was gone. The company he founded still runs the ads--and they still work. Sales are dropping now, but the Karbo's self-help tome still sold almost 50,000 copies in 1986. In the same year, John Wright's The Royal Road to Riches sold 61,450 copies, according to a mailing list company to which both firms sold the names of customers.

2.  Karbo is a legend in "direct response" marketing, a $200-billion-a-year industry where thousands of entrepreneurs hope to make it big by selling ideas and products directly to consumers. Most direct response marketers are legitimate vendors of real products. Others sell ideas about how to make it big. Karbo's firm, and a hundred others, promise readers that for $10 or $12.95 or $24.95 or more, with little work or skill, they too can make millions.

All one needs is the right "secret plan." David Bendah, whose Lion Publishing Company offers dozens of books promising instant and easy wealth, claims to spend close to a million dollars a year placing twenty different full page ads in fifty publications.

There is a dazzling abundance of such plans. They are advertised in periodicals such as Time or Popular Mechanics, but also in at least a dozen periodicals devoted to money-making schemes with titles like Income Opportunities, Success Opportunities, Successful Opportunities, or New Business Opportunities. Direct mail is also a common way of marketing the plans, as those who buy even one of them will discover as their mailboxes fill with other plans.

In this paper, we analyze the strategies used by purveyors of get-rich- quick plans, strategies notable less for originality than for adroit application of ancient and tested ways of misusing language. We are interested not in plans that clearly state what kind of business the customer will learn about for his or her money, rather at the multitude of schemes which, often in thousands of enticing words, promise enormous wealth without giving an intimation as to how that wealth will come.

Basic Techniques

Most get-rich-quick pitches use techniques Karbo pioneered. They seldom reveal what the buyer will get for his money; more often they tell what the plan isn't rather than what it is. A typical pitch contains:

* a confession that the person selling the plan was an uneducated failure;
* a picture of the promoter standing in front of an expensive car or a palatial mansion;
* testimonials from ordinary folk;
* claims of uniqueness and ease;
* criticisms of competing plans (some even say the author tried other schemes and failed - until he hit upon one that works);
* a limited time offer;
* a money-back guarantee, sometimes even more than that if the customer is not satisfied.

Buyers are often urged to postdate checks a month or more.

Our emphasis is on the language used to sell the plans, not the plans themselves, since buyers usually have no idea of what they are purchasing. The language is invariably more sophisticated than the product.

The average get-rich-quick plan is cheaply printed common sense or nonsense, commonly the later. In this business, the real product is typically the hope of success, not the book or pamphlet. At best, buyers receive useful but readily available information about how to run a particular business. At worst, they receive information that, if followed, will lead to financial catastrophe. Karbo's book is typical, a combination of positive thinking and mail order techniques. Gary Elliston of Costa Mesa, California, boasts a plan "quite different from anything you have ever seen or heard." $24.95 buys a cheaply printed book advocating positive thinking and promotional product marketing (e.g., selling advertising on plastic cups used in hospitals). Other plans include "sure-fire" ways to beat the horses, win the lottery, sell mailing lists, arrange loans, help people get money from the government, benefit from multi-level marketing schemes, or peddle travel club memberships.

What persuades people to send in real money in the hope of improbable millions? To that we now turn.

Identification
Among the most quoted passages in Kenneth Burke's work is his sentence on identification: "You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his".

3.  Get-rich-quick promoters are not close readers of Burke, but they know that persuasion and identification are inseparably related. In one way or another, these pitches identify the successful entrepreneur with the common person.

The promoters aim at people of limited means who want somehow to escape their financial woes. Nearly every pitch claims to be written by a one-time failure with no skills or qualifications who, by good fortune about to be shared with any reader able to part with $15.95, found financial salvation. The writers adopt a direct, personal, informal style, often with grammatical errors, using the second person, addressing the reader as a friend.

Karbo's classic ad explains: "You think you've got problems? Well, I remember when a bank turned me down for a $200 loan.... I remember the day my wife phoned me, crying, because the landlord had shown up at the house, demanding his rent--and we didn't have the money to pay it." Ruth Aycock from Salt Lake City confesses:

A little while ago, my life was so miserable. I had just gotten married and my husband lost his job.... To make matters worse, I got pregnant and yet we had no money for a doctor or insurance. The only thing we owned were a few dishes that I had collected before I got married. We were getting ready to sell our little car that was all smashed up in the front, but  we would have ended up paying an additional $1,000 to the bank.

4.  The point is that the author is like the readers, only more so. His or her problems were as bad, in fact probably worse, than those of the reader. The authors present themselves as having been uneducated failures, broke, desperate, without hope. The strategy appeals to those in like straits, but perhaps also to those in the lower middle class who earn enough to survive, but see no prospects of real financial success. If Joe Karbo can do it, how much more likely it is that they can too.

Credibility Building

As a further way of identification, the pitches typically include testimonials from those who supposedly have applied the plan and earned their fortunes, usually identified only by their initials. Joe Karbo's ads, for example include these testimonials:

* In February 1974 you sent me (for ten bucks) your Lazy Man's Way to Riches. Since then I have made approximately 50 grand ($50,000) just fooling around on the basis of your advice. You see, I really am lazy--otherwise I could have made 50 million! Thank you!
--Mr. R. McK., Atlanta, GA

* Two years ago, I mailed you ten dollars in sheer desperation for a better life... One year ago, just out of the blue sky, a man called and offered me a partnership... I grossed over $260,000 cash business in eleven months. You are a God sent miracle to me.
--B.F., Pascagoula, Miss.

Don Joseph of Thornton, Illinois mails seven pages of testimonials from 101 delighted customers to potential buyers. No addresses or phone numbers are provided, though his letter notes the original letters are available at his office, for those who want to travel a thousand miles to check on a $12.95 purchase.

The better-known get-rich-quick gurus cite media "endorsements" of their plans--or so they suggest. Karbo's ads quote Time's 1973 description of him as "the prototype for...the `The Lazy Man's Way to Riches.'" The ads ignore the magazine's judgment that the book was "part rip-off, part a paean to the potential of positive thinking."

Some promoters invent imposing organizations to lend credibility to their products. Christ Steele, for example, claims that his plan has precociously been named the "Best Money-Making Program of the 1990's" by the "Consumer Wealth Research Institute," whose anonymous president is cited in his ads as saying "If you can't become a millionaire with this program, you can't become a millionaire at all." That is probably true.

Many follow Karbo's lead and provide the names of their bankers or accountants, or lists of their recent bank deposits, for those doubting their millionaire status. And many print their pictures, standing in front of a Rolls Royce or a mansion, visible evidence of their success.

In short, not only is the author like the reader, so apparently are large numbers of other once unfortunate souls who found prosperity though the plan being offered. Buyers need not believe the seller; they can trust all of the other successful buyers.

Fantastic Claims
The headlines alone of get-rich schemes are rhetorical marvels. "The Royal Road to Riches" is offered by John Wright. Other current ads claim: "JUST MAIL TWO LETTERS...AND Make $15,000 in ONE (1) MONTH,'" "How to Become An Instant Millionaire," "Rich Texas Man Will Send You $10,000 In 3 Days!," or "$100,000 per Year While Vacationing in Europe." Such fantastic claims add curious plausibility to the schemes--readers realize they are not likely to make a million, but surely the advertiser wouldn't make such astounding claims unless there was at least some truth to them.

These outrageous claims enhance the persuasive value of mystery. Each plan typically claims to be original, unlike anything else in recorded history. Steele asserts that his plan is "Not Anything that is Advertised by Anyone Else in this Magazine." Promoters regularly list a dozen or more things their plan is not, encouraging the reader to believe that finally he or she has found the secret of instant wealth. Each plan is portrayed as a unique system that can be used by any common person with mysteriously fantastic results.

The mystery is emphasized by many words. The typical ad or letter contains thousands of words, words which however convey no information other than that buyers can make great sums of money without working hard. The reader is likely to scan the pitch for details, but none emerge. The abundance of words, typically a full magazine page ad or a multi-page letter, provide no clues. Often, only the illusion of information is given. Steele, for example, writes:

Let me tell you more about this "unique" money-making secret. With this secret the money can roll in fast. If you can follow easy instructions you can get started in a single afternoon and have ready cash in your pocket the next morning. In fact, this is the fastest legal method to make money ever invented in the history of this world. It is practically risk-free and it is not a dangerous gamble. Everything you do is tested and proven-effective and you can get started for less money than most people spend for a night on the town.

The method is simple. It would be hard to make a mistake even if you tried. You don't need any degree or diploma. All you need is a little common sense and the ability to follow simple, easy, step-by-step instructions. You can use this secret to make money no matter how old or how young you are. There is no physical labor involved and everything is so easy it could be done by a teenager or a 100 year old man.

After a full page of small print, Steele still has not given the reading the slightest indication of what he is offering. The profusion of verbiage serves a useful function. The startling headline claims entice the reader into reading the text, hoping to learn at least something. After several thousand words readers are as curious as at the beginning; in fact, they are probably more curious, having taken several minutes to at least scan the pitch. That investment of time, a form of partial commitment, makes the reader likelier to order the plan.

Steele's plan is typical in its promise of effortless wealth. Karbo's ads describe his life of ease on the beach. Wright claims: "It will take you only two hours to learn how to use this secret. After that everything is almost automatic. After you get started you can probably do everything that is necessary in three hours per week." Tom Daniels of San Leandro, California offers to explain how to "make up to $3,000.00 or more per week without leaving home." David Alan of Las Vegas claims he and his wife can make a million dollars in a few hours while watching television. His plan turns out to be a simple pyramid scheme requiring 20,000,000 people to receive a mailing before the person on top makes his million.

Scarcity and the "Lucky Break"
The persuasive value of scarcity is well established. The get-rich-quick pitches regularly suggest that each appeal may be our last opportunity to purchase the plan. Elliston sent us two "Third Notices," requesting urgent action, though we never got notices one and two. Frank Wallace sends his offer for a new system for controlling other people (costing $69.95) by first class mail, with a postmark deadline for buyers of about two days after they receive it.

So far, we've heard from him twice, both times with a tight deadline. Magazine ads often state that the offer is good for "30 days," when in fact the same ads may appear for a decade. The LASER ACCESS SYSTEM offers "YOUR LAST CHANCE TO FINANCIAL SUCCESS."  Just as salesmen often win buyers by announcing "prices go up tomorrow," the get-rich-quick schemers create artificial scarcity.

Consistent with the scarcity argument is the idea, regularly stressed in these ads, of the "lucky break," a break which by definition may never recur. George Ropchan explains: "Several years ago I sat across the table from an elderly, wealthy man, who taught me a secret money-making program so powerful, that within minutes of listening to him I knew it would change my life completely.". Laura Johnson explains that she was having lunch with a friend who had obviously found a way to make great sums. At first the friend kept quiet, but "after two or three glasses of wine, her face lit up and she began to talk. She told me one of the most incredible secrets I've ever heard." The point is also consistent with the alleged incompetence of the plan's purveyor, a person who by his or her own confession is not sufficiently clever enough to think up the plan.

The reader, by good fortune, has chanced across the plan just as the plan's inventor once did. All that remains is to seize the opportunity. Wealth is presented in these plans as the result of magic, good luck, or divine providence. Magic is indeed the only way many plans could function, so astounding are their claims.