I Know this is a very very long video, but it's because we're gonna show you guys exactly Step by step how to perfect what is definitely the most overlooked and underrated step in the entire publishing process and facts And if you do watch this video and implement everything that we say you will Guaranteed make thousands of dollar extra in the long run from your publishing business I guarantee it what we're trying to say is this video is definitely worth watching especially if you run am s ads to your books Especially so what is this step in the process that we're talking about it's obviously not a secret because it says in the title Right, it's your description of your book And I think it's something that people don't talk enough about and they don't put much effort into a lot of people Just copy and paste some bullshit into the book description people don't realize that your book description is The sales page for your book So this lesson is actually from it's a full lesson from the course you please stop It's a full lesson from a 2.0 that we've been creating holding nothing back, and it's Everything you need to know to write the best selling book descriptions for your book Is there anything else you want to say before we just show it? Let's run the clip. Let's run the entire lesson I hope you guys enjoy fades of black What's up everyone and welcome to this lesson where we are going to be talking about how to write a book Description that sells like crazy. We just talked about how important your book description is now This is gonna be a long juicy lesson about how to actually get that done So we'll be talking about the structure of a best-selling book description as well as how to nail every part of your book Description when you break it down and how to just deliver the best sales copy Possible really there was too much in this lesson to write it all in this section. Yeah, so we're just like really forget it Yeah We would like to start this lesson with a little disclaimer Just letting you know this is going to be a very heavy and very detailed lesson So we just want to let you know that we don't want you to get overwhelmed Okay, you can watch back this lesson whenever you want watch it now You're not gonna be writing your description now, but when you do watch it You could either print out the PDF below which has all the the slides Or you can watch it back here what we have to say, but definitely do watch this lesson back wins But definitely do watch this lesson back when you are actually writing your description This lesson does get quite advanced, but it's something anyone can learn and apply. Yeah, literally anyone It just takes a little bit of time So this also goes beyond writing book descriptions Take what you learn in this lesson beyond your book descriptions And you can apply it to future book titles and also outside of your publishing business Copywriting is one of the most valuable skills to have in business, which is all writing a book description is it's copywriting Copywriting is just the written form of sales selling with words. Shall we get into it? Yes. Let's begin So let's start with talking a bit about background of our book descriptions So your book description is going to be slightly different for your e-book your paperback book and your audio book There are differences We have to accommodate for to make each book description the most highly optimized book description possible Because the book description is so damn important and plays such a big role in converting an interested browser into a buyer So this is why we are going to make those accommodations some small some bigger But there is a lesson about each of these ones Explaining the differences and what you're going to change So let's start with the fact that on KDP you are only allowed 4,000 characters well only allowed you are allowed 4,000 characters a lot. Yeah in your book description Which is approximately 600 words and you want to use as much of those 4,000 characters as possible, but of course that depends on your book if You have a short book about a simple topic such as I don't know puppy training in our example It's not the most complex topic So our book description probably will not be the full 4,000 characters But maybe 3,000 characters and that's okay But the point is your book description is not just supposed to be one paragraph and then Buy this book. That's not what your book description looks like it is it's long. It's structured There's psychology involved. There's copywriting involved and you want to use the real estate that you're allowed So in general longer is better, but the point is just to deliver the message And then for audible you are only allowed 2,000 characters now That's actually quite short only which is approximately 300 words But watch the lesson that it comes later after this one Where we show you the changes to make so that you can accommodate your Discursion that you've written for audible So let's move on Now all non-fiction book descriptions can be broken down into the same basic structure Regardless of the niche. I like this. This is what I like is how we break it down like this break it down into five Sections it makes it a lot easier to approach and a lot easier to actually it's not as intimidating Like oh, where the hell do I even begin you begin with the headline? But yeah, we'll get into that now the main exception is bundles But in the bundle module will show you how to write description for your bundles. Yeah, so let's break it down This is how your descriptions will start and there's five different sections So it starts with your headline followed by your story slash lead then your bullet points dealing with last-minute objections and finally your call to action So we're gonna go through every single step here break it down give a lot of detail on each one Yeah, yeah, so that's why we're saying don't get overwhelmed because there is a lot of information in this lesson But we just want to provide as much guidance as possible Now it says this is a plug-and-play structure template. It really is which it is Once you've figured out like the base of it or how it works in general It's gonna be much easier to write your descriptions from there on after Yeah, but learning at first it takes time actually what I also wanted to say in the disclaimer that I forgot is that uh This is not easy writing a book description. A really good one is not easy So you can definitely outsource it I would recommend for a lot of people to outsource it to a professional We have a lesson about that so I won't talk more about that but back to the plug-and-play structure Yeah, every book description that you write will start with a headline and end with a call to action Every single one no wavering from that. So, yeah, let's move on So the first thing that your book description or that every book description will start with is your headline and your headline is Your most important part because it's the only part that appears above the fold There's a picture of it right here. The fold is what you see without having to click the read more button So we have red arrows here pointing to this book descriptions headline It's like that again. We will be teaching formatting in a future lesson But what's so important about this is because it is The part of the description that will grab all the attention everyone will see it. You can't not see it Okay, so it is super important to have something captivating and compelling, but we'll get into that So the headline has one job and one job only and that is to make the reader click the read more button and Read the next line. That's it. That is the only thing you want to accomplish with your headline That's the only you have to keep in mind. I love breaking things down that simply Okay, because that really is all we want from this You don't have to prove anything in the headline You have to teach anything just make them click the read more but just get them interested make them want to read more So a common mistake that publishers make is that they try to sell their book in the headline Yeah, having huge claims and benefits in the headline and pushing for the sale too soon Something like buy this book if you want to get rich tomorrow That was a very extreme example, but things like that people will sometimes start a headline with buy this book Or here's why you should buy Trying to try to force a sale down your throat Yeah, this turns customers off because you're pushing for the sale too quickly and Everyone hates a pushy salesman right off the bat. Yeah, there's nothing worse I'll give an example Have you ever walked like down a market and then you're just looking at booths. They're just selling random trinkets We live in Southeast Asia. So yeah, see it a lot Yeah So they're just selling bracelets or sunglasses and like I want to brace it or I want sunglasses But I walk up start looking at the sunglasses and then he comes up like special price review special price here Start giving me all kinds of crazy stuff and it will literally turn me from interested I need a sunglasses to know I'm literally walking away. I don't want to deal with you because you're trying to force it on me Yeah, like that's a very uncomfortable feeling. So they will literally become not interested where they push you a pushy salesman And the equivalent would be a headline when you try to sell it Yeah, they won't want to hear what you want to say and they won't click that read more button And that's all you want to happen. Yeah So there are a few different ways you can structure a headline Specifically we have four that are the most effective headlines. We're gonna give examples of every single one Let's first name what they are first is an if then statement number two is using questions Number three is how to even if statement and number four is a buzzfeed headline So all four kinds of headlines are very Effective it gives you a few options. So not all of your book descriptions are the exact same exactly We could just have left with one like start each one with an if then statement But then all descriptions would look very similar. So here are four options that you can all take in many different directions Yeah, it's really about having options so that you could create a book description that you like So let's show how or let's talk about how we can create each single headline Yeah, so the first one is the if then statement This is probably the most simple kind of headline very very simple structure again Even the headline is plug-and-play So an if then statement looks like if you want to then you insert a benefit that Applies to your book in your niche dot dot dot then keep reading now those three words just then keep reading Very simple very Unexciting but it works and it works because you're telling the reader exactly what you want them to do to read more The point of the headline is to get them to read more So so you're just telling them that and it's very easy. You're not asking for a lot Asking someone to keep reading is a small Favorite that you're asking of them if that's not a favorite, but it's a small action that you're asking from them So They'll do it. So this is one of those very simple extremely simple, but extremely effective Headlines so I'm a big fan of this one now Effective copywriting doesn't need to be exciting in this case It isn't really or complicated the if then statement certainly is not complicated either It just needs to work which this does the if then statement works So don't complicate it anymore. You don't need to make it clever or catchy. So this is like the That this is like this simple, but effective one So you could just use this one for all your headlines if you so choose Now an example of if then headlines would be something like this So for the weight loss niche if you want to and then benefit lose up to 10 pounds in two weeks Then keep reading boom so easy so simple so effective for the business and money niche If you want to make 10% a year in the stock market then keep reading Yeah, so in the brackets is of course the benefit that we mentioned It addresses the reader directly with a benefit that they want from your book Then ask them to take action which is a simple keep reading It's a very simple and it works for every single niche. That's the good thing. It works for any niche Now the next kind of headline that we're going to talk about is a question headline With a question headline you simply address your reader directly with a question Now asking a question is extremely effective as well Because humans are neurologically programmed to answer questions that are relevant to them again It will only work if you ask a relevant question And what you want to do with the question is play on problems that your reader has If you don't know exactly what we mean by that, let's get into the examples Now some questions are better to ask than others Let's give examples of an okay a better and a best question to ask in a headline So we're gonna use the weight loss niche as an example again So an okay question really a bad question. Do you want to lose weight? It's it's bad when you compare it to the best Yeah, but it's better than the headline we mentioned before it's like buy this book if you want to lose weight Yeah, yeah, just do you want to lose weight? You're not making any crazy claims You're not telling them why they should buy your book. Do you want to lose weight? They're like, yeah, I want to lose weight. So they're gonna click the read more But it's too broad and it's the answer is too obvious. Yeah, so a better example is do you want to lose weight quickly? Okay, it's a little more specific better still not specific enough and not detail enough. So the best Question to put a headline with this example would be do you want to lose weight quickly while still eating? Sorry while still enjoying your favorite foods. Yes. Yes, I do Now this dispels objections, which is oh, I can lose weight, but I can't eat my favorite foods anymore Yeah, and it dresses their fears, which is this which is also I can't enjoy my favorite foods Now make sure that the response is positive, which is yes. Yes. Yeah Make sure the answer to the question is always yes, and this will make them click the read more button Now the next Wait to write a headline is third one is the how to even if headline This is a little bit more complicated, but extremely effective. So here's how it goes how to Get end result without common sacrifice, even if common objection So an objection is a reason to disagree or refuse or not buy I think the best way to describe it is it's someone's reason to not buy your thing Yeah, so it's it's what they're thinking in their head the reason why I'm not gonna buy it Yeah Now here's an example that we came up with how to lose weight, which is an end result that they want without Exercise which is a common sacrifice and even if there's a common objection Even if you fail that every other diet in your life Yeah, now I'm gonna read it all together how to lose weight without exercise Even if you fail that every other diet in your life now the common objection part of it is very powerful because they're thinking in their head Yeah, okay. I want to lose weight. I don't want to exercise But I've heard this shit before and I fail every time I've already tried it I failed every time I try and dieting so you just acknowledge and Address their objection saying this can work even if you've never had success with dieting before So just a very powerful headline. Yeah now the fourth kind of headline they can use is Something that we call a BuzzFeed headline. This is a shocking and provocative headline it catches curiosity it can include shocking numbers facts and statistics Here's an example Three fourths.  That's 75% by 2020. That's the next year. Yeah Well when you're watching this keep reading to make sure you don't become one of them keep reading Yeah again the point of all these four headlines is to have someone to just continue reading everything else you have to say So to show you more what a BuzzFeed headline looks like Let's actually have a look at BuzzFeed comm if you know what BuzzFeed is BuzzFeed is basically a news outlet and They're just known for having extremely shocking and provocative headlines. They have some of the best copyright is writing this stuff.   I'm genuinely curious So I'm just want to see what they have to say Master the art of layering. Okay fair.  I lost interest, but yeah, but the headline made you get interest Okay, okay, this one this one this one carefully select a dozen donuts from Krispy Kreme and we'll tell you your exact birth month What what the hell are you talking about? How's that possible? No, but it's super. It's just attention grabbing So if I choose a lot of donuts, can we try this real quick? We'll do this lady I'm gonna do this another time But choose 12 donuts and they could guess my birth year. Okay, but as you saw as an example how shocking Provocative and attention grabbing those titles. Yeah, it makes you want to learn more. That's all it is in this case read more Mm-hmm Moving on to the next part of your book description after your headline after your headline See your headline is done. You don't have to worry about your headline ever again Okay, your headline is just one sentence basically it can be two but like one sentence for the most part And the next section out of the five that make up a great book description is your story Slash lead and to be completely honest I think this can be the most tricky section because there are so many ways to go depending on your book It's just you can't provide as much handheld guidance in this one because There's so much variance between every book and every niche and there's so many ways to go about it So many approaches so many directions. So yeah, you said it's the most tricky But that's not a bad thing because it's not the most important the headline and the bullet points Yeah, it's the most important. It's it's not the most important But like you said the headline and the bullet points are the most important. I think we talked about this later Because someone can easily read only the headline only a bullet point and be like it just sold Yeah, the next book. So if that helps take some pressure off of this part, there you go I hope it does because it can be a little tricky That's at least what I personally struggle with the most and probably why I like to outsource my book descriptions Because I'm not the best writer Anyway now what you want to do in this section is ease your reader into the description Open them up and get them interested in what you have to say Start with something interesting about your niche or you could also tell a little story because people love stories all caps love stories That's true now again a common mistake that publishers make here is that they make giant claims too early Even too early just never make two giant claims. Okay. Yeah, don't make giant claims ever only we'll talk about that later But it's certainly too early to be making claims right now about what this book can do for you You're not you don't want to sell your readers yet. Okay now This is the biggest turnoff because the guard is still up. There's still they still need to be convinced Like can I trust you that's that's just how sales work Everyone is skeptical in the beginning and it's not ready to buy right from the beginning people and needs to be warmed up That is how all sales work another purpose of your story slash lead is two things One is to build trust and the other is to establish credibility which will in turn also build trust. Yes, right? So how do you build trust people buy from people that they trust? You don't trust someone who is trying to sell you something right from the get-go. So don't try to sell them anything yet Yeah, right again, there's so much psychology involved here. So just follow what's taught in this lesson So you need to build trust first now How do you do that you can build trust by focusing on the problems before the solutions focusing? Yeah, focus on the problems that they have and not trying to provide these solutions now Don't tell them about how your book will provide every solution that they need show them that you understand the problems They are going through that's how they're gonna trust you.  They're not just trying to sell They understand what I'm going through and what I need help with so state your readers problems and be specific Rather than vague. That's why instead of do you want to lose weight then do you want to lose weight? Quickly while still being able to enjoy your favorite foods. Yes, that's certainly a lot more intriguing and interesting Mm-hmm Now when people can see that you understand the problems This is like we just said they will automatically think that you have the solution Yeah, this part helps to lower the reader's guard and open themselves up to hearing about your solution Yeah, they will become receptive to what you have to say and what you are selling So this is what makes this story slash lead part of your description important because they're just Opening themselves up to being sold to yeah So when you actually provide them how you can help them they're they're listening and they're like cool I mean first meet someone you're like no I don't want to buy I don't want I don't want to buy and then as you you become friends with them a little bit like Okay, I'm one. Okay. Yeah. Tell me. Tell me what you're offering exactly So the second objective with your story slash lead is Establishing credibility and one way to do that is using customer language So it's very important that you use the language and vocabulary of your readers So you need to know who you're talking to this demonstrates credibility Because when you speak in their language you show that you know about this topic You know what you're talking about. You know what they're looking for now an example of you know using language depending on your audience let's use men and women as an example in the Weight loss niche women want to be toned but men want to be get shredded, right? So if you if your book is for women you would never use the word shredded They don't want to be shredded. They're gonna be like, what are you even talking about like no? I'm not trying to be shredded. No, they want to be toned though But if you're making a book for men about how do you six pack abs? You would use shredded because men don't want to be toned. You know, I don't have bulging muscles everywhere So women want to be Victoria's secret models while men want to be muscle machines. Yeah, so this is just an example of Knowing who you're talking to so know your target audience and talk to them in the way that is most receptive for them Now another example won't be the right kind of vocabulary to use in the investing niche would be something like assets Capital gain, dividends, equity, securities, interest, yield, these are all investing terms Yeah, now the wrong kind of vocabulary to use in the investing niche would be something like this make money Even though everyone wants to make money, that's not the right terminology make money get rich Financial freedom. That's not how you talk to an investor There's a different kind of audience that that does appeal to but not investors, right? Now another way of establishing credibility is by providing a quote from an authority figure Now here's an example the Mediterranean diet is a really nice example of the potential to love food That loves you back nothing special about this quote that the quote isn't really the important part here But it's written by or it comes from dr. David L. Katz the founding director of Yale's University Prevention Research this dude's opinion matters this dude's opinion matters and what he says is right and since we are Quoting him in our book. Then we must also know what we're talking about. Yeah We are associated with this figure of authority If you're quoting someone who knows what they're talking about then we themselves We will know what we're talking about. It's one of the best ways of establishing credibility. Yeah Now another way of establishing credibility is by using facts statistics and numbers You're you you're showing that you know what you're talking about So another example according to the cdc national center of health statistics 39.8% of American adults are obese. We're using a fact and statistics and numbers in this one So this sentence tells the reader that I've done my research and I know what I'm talking about huge Now if I if I say the fact here, I know what I'm talking about They're gonna think in their head that that applies to everything in the book Yeah, now you as a whole are put on a pedestal. So you are now credible. I Want to listen to you. I want to learn from you. I want to eventually buy your book Now also be sure to credit how the credible sources and official sources similar to the last point And here we're quoting the cdc national center for health statistics Like no one will argue that what you're saying is not true exactly if you just say the 39.8% of Americans are obese Like, okay, that's interesting. I need to lose weight because I don't want to be that But the power in this quote is the according to the cdc national center for health statistics Also, keep this in mind 39.8% is so much more powerful than 40% Yes, it is. Is it 40% american? It's it sounds like you probably made it up. Yeah, right? But 39.8 like wow, they did their research. This is this is specific that came from like a research lab Yeah, that is incredibly specific Now building trust and establishing credibility is how you're going to build the rapport that you want with your readers Which is the entire purpose of this section of your book descriptions to build a rapport or make friends with them Make them trust you and make them look up to you look up to your knowledge on this subject We have covered the first two points or the first two sections of your description Which is your headline and your story slash lead now the third section is your bullet points This is the fun one. Yeah, so the second most important part after your headline It could arguably could be the most important but Yeah, so this is where you pack in the benefits of your book Someone might buy because there's one single bullet point that really resonates with them Right, so a common mistake that publishers make here is giving away the solution in the book description Do not give away the content of the book before they buy the book You have to keep them curious the power is making them want to buy your book Now examples of what not to do with a book about weight loss for example in your bullet points Or would be saying this is paraphrasing saying something like use intermittent fasting Go on the keto diet do portion control. This makes no sense as bullet points because this is not going to sell your book So in this case the reader now has all the answers they need They can simply just go and google the rest. They don't need your book. The point is to sell your book They don't need your book anymore if you're just telling them all the answers like that So the bullet points is your opportunity to sell Do a lot of selling in a short amount of words You've already broken them down that their guard is down and now they're willing to be sold to If you effectively wrote your story slash lead Now people love to read bullet points and they might even only read your headline and your bullet points I'll say I probably do that often. I I oh for me 100% Yeah, I'm just scrolling straight to the bullet points like what's What's in it for me? What's in this a lot of us are super add So we just want to see the things that stand out. Yeah So how are you going to want to start your bullet points is using this is how you introduce them very simple It'll be in this book you will discover or in Book title you will discover the reason why we use the word discover It's just a synonym for learn, but people don't like to learn they want to discover It's much more enticing learn makes it sound like you're in school like oh god This is like a freaking of research paper an essay that I have to read what a chore Never mind none. No, you want to discover new things again This is just in-depth copywriting things that we're showing you guys So tell readers what to do not how to do it give away a taste of what is inside the book Think of this as samples of cheese at the supermarket. Yeah, don't just give them a whole cheese roll Or whatever you call them a wheel if you give them the whole block of cheese They don't need any more cheese. So they're not going to bled their own block of wheel Wheel of cheese their own wheel of cheese Because they don't need it anymore But if you have three samples three really like a really great cheddar cheese great mozzarella a great ricotta like Okay, I want more cheese. So they're gonna buy your wheel. Yeah, that's obviously an analogy, but um these same things apply Yeah, so you want to spike curiosity curiosity is the most powerful selling emotion Effective sales copy evokes curiosity Convey that your book is full of secrets and shortcuts secrets is one of my favorite Copywriting words.  I mean if I'm reading a book title or a book description I'm like, what is this one point me just let me I'm just gonna spend the three bucks just and go inside and find out Okay, that's what I meant. I mean that's satisfied That's exactly what happened with me right there on the bus feed Like pick 12 donuts and we'll tell you what month you were born in Like I'm dying to figure out if this is it gonna work like the tab is still open I'm going to do that when this lesson is done And that's just all because of curiosity Now we just want to show you a few examples of bullet points to use and ones and not to use So these are examples of Where you're telling the reader Exactly how to get the thing they're looking for versus telling them What is in the book that will get them the result that they're looking for and then also adding flavor and making things interesting and using language that it's like I This is interesting to read. I'm enjoying reading this description So it's just all about making the reader need to learn more about your bullet points You're just eat the point of every bullet point is to be like, okay. Tell me more. Tell me more Okay, so how to lose weight by eating cabbage like oh, okay. Thank you I mean it was helpful cabbage by losing weight It was helpful the reader will appreciate it, but it's not going to make them buy your book Now the one green vegetable you should eat to lose up to four pounds per week This is the like the best curiosity peaking example I wrote this and I want someone to tell me what that one green vegetable is Is it cabbage? Is it spinach? Next example here. Why stellar lumens is the next 100 x cryptocurrency? You know what you're telling you're telling them the answer there So this is in the crypto niche what I'm going to do there. I'm like, okay. I'm gonna google search stellar lumens I'm going to find out. Okay. That is a good crypto Then I'm going to go and buy some stellar lumens. Okay, I'm not going to buy your book You're not giving them a reason to buy your book now because you just told them it's stellar lumens. Yeah So how you do want to approach this would be something like This coin currently trading at less than one dollar has the potential to become the next bitcoin Like like, okay Like oh like you're gonna stop there. What the hell's wrong with you? Yeah, tell me what coin this is Now the next example Why you should use the word you in a lot of book descriptions. Okay. All right But how about this the single most powerful word you can use in your book descriptions to produce an avalanche of sales Hence it's not free because that's not free. That's what they're thinking. Oh, it's the word free. Yeah, smart guy avalanche of sales That's like that's amazingly Descriptive and I can imagine my head That's just a great way of describing it that that might be my favorite bullet point out of all of these actually All four of the checkmarks are all very good. But yeah, uh, this final example, um, It's a little bit a random one, but why you should never paint your home bright colors Let's say it's in the home wear niche a better way to Say that and sell your book would be why adding improvements can actually lower the value of your house like what Like curious i'm curious. How does that make sense? Making better is worse. That doesn't make sense to me. I need to buy a book to figure out what the hell you're talking about So final thing about bullet points is that you're going to want a minimum of seven bullet points People read bullet points. So you want to give them boom boom boom If you layer like seven pieces of curiosity on top of each other like well, I have seven reasons to buy this book This is your opportunity to sell and go crazy And your first and last bullet point should be your best selling or favorite one Simply because those are the ones that are most likely to be red. That that's the only reason why And if you choose to use bold and your bullet points use them on your more powerful bullet points as well Just to get the eyeballs on that. Yeah, so uh the formatting lesson, which is very in-depth is all about that Like the formatting it's not just as important as the written words But you could argue that is damn close Formatting is super important so that you make people read what you want them to read Now this is section four of five of your book description. We covered the headline We covered the story slash lead and the bullet points next after that is dealing with last minute objections Now we're getting towards the end of it An objection is a reason for someone to disagree refuse or not buy It's reasons that someone won't buy a book. Yeah, right So even after reading your bullet points, many readers will still have objections The goal here is to address them deal with them and get rid of these objections that are stopping people from buying Yeah, so three of the most common objections that people have from buying your book Number one is this true Number two does this person know what they're talking about and three will the information in this book work for me Right, so let's deal with all three of these common objections. Yeah So this first one. Is it true? This one is pretty easy to overcome How you are going to make your reader know that everything you're saying is true is simply by Making everything that you say believable and realistic So where people would go wrong with this is by saying something crazy and insane lose 250 pounds in an hour. Yeah Yeah, that's not believable. That's not realistic and they're not going to trust you. They're gonna be like, okay This book it's clearly just they just want me to buy. Okay So some people believe that like a bigger and crazier claim is better Like this book said how to lose 10 pounds in a week. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna say how to lose 15 pounds in a week So you don't want to take it too far. So a bigger and crazier claim Is not always better. It might actually be worse if it becomes unrealistic But if you make completely reasonable claims, there's no reason to think you can't deliver on what you're saying There's no reason to think that anything you're saying isn't true. So it's just like, yeah, it's true That's possible from what I know. Yeah You only ever want to make honest and reasonable claims that your book content can back up Or else they won't trust you and people will feel misled and leave a bad review You don't want that don't tell people that you will get the results that just aren't possible No, because I see it. This is this is not just like this is something that people do Like in a cryptocurrency book, I'll show you how to make 10 extra money in 30 days By buying this coin like that's just not true And then when someone reads it and that's not worth they're going to get they're going to be Mad because they feel misled and they're going to leave a better view. But like this book was a scam So this is a huge mistake that people are making sales You think that bigger more exaggerated claim will make people buy more. That's not true It won't if it's too big people won't trust you and you won't buy at all. We've basically already said this Yeah, so spammy shipbooks have exaggerated and illegitimate claims. You said this as well. Yeah, right So the next objection, how do we deal with? Does this person know what they're talking about? This objection is easy to overcome with selling your ebook because you are selling a low priced item Which is just a 299 ebook You don't need to be Warren Buffett to sell a 299 ebook about getting started with investing Yeah, but this is definitely more important for selling your paperback book Which is going to be your most high priced item or product that you sell You do want to assert credibility of what you're talking about Now you can do this by demonstrating and proving the claims that you've made by showing results So maybe earlier in your description you provided claims But then after the bullet points, you're going to prove the claims by showing results Use real life numbers like the actual return that people have made by investing in stocks Or you can use scientific studies to prove claims and make them into facts Tangible evidence is key in demonstrating credibility. So this is just more demonstrating credibility people need credibility. Yes So an example of this in the weight loss niche would be something like Studies have proven to show that people on this diet are losing an average of 17 percent more weight than people on the ketogenic diet Examining in the investing niche in 2018 People made an average of 3.2 percent capital gains in the stock market proof that the claims that you've made are true Now the third and biggest objection that readers might have is The information in this book won't work for me So this is the strongest and oftentimes the most difficult objection that needs to be overcome This objection stems from a place of I can't do it. This is a personal thing that people have So people can know that your product works for the people and that you know what you're talking about Like those are like, okay. Yes. Yeah, I believe it. They've been they've seen it. You've shown facts. You've shown statistics You've shown authority. You've shown results. You've shown everything But they think i'm different. Yeah, it won't work for me. I'm different. Can I get the results? But can I get results? Tell them that yes, even they can get the results But if they don't think that it will work for them, they still won't buy You need to convince the reader that this will work for them personally personally Address the biggest reason why your reader thinks it won't work for them So you need to figure out what is the biggest reason why your readers are skeptical that your book will work for them Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is interested in buying and this will vary from book to book There's no like with the headline which is very easy copy-paste. This is not like that This would require some customer research or as simple as just putting yourself In the shoes of someone buying your book, but we're gonna give you examples You know exactly what we mean that this will make much more sense Um, so here are examples of the biggest reasons why your reader will think that your book won't work for them So in the weight loss niche They think this won't work for me because I failed at every other diet I've ever tried because of me Exactly. I'm the problem. So it won't work for me exactly.  Yeah now an example in the guitar niche This won't work for me because I've never even picked up a guitar before everything works But they've picked up a guitar before at the very least exactly your book is called guitar Guitars for beginners so beginners can learn it. Like I'm not a beginner Like I've never even touched a guitar before all these other people you're talking about with all the results They've at least like They maybe have a brother who plays guitar and they have some affiliation with guitars But I have nothing can it still work for me. Let them know. Yeah, it'll still work for you Now an example in the investing niche This won't work for me because I literally have no money That that's that's a good one Yeah, and an example in the dating niche This won't work for me because I'm ugly like all the dating stuff.  Let them know. Yes, you can now on the next slide We're going to show you how to overcome each of these objections And the programming niche last one this won't work for me because programming is complicated And I don't have any technical or computer skills. Now. How do we overcome each of these? So an extreme even if statement is amazing for addressing and dismissing this objection Extreme but still completely legitimate and realistic. Yeah, that could seem contradicting to what we were saying before by making realistic claims That still applies, but you're you're pushing the edge. Maybe So you deal with that objection by saying something like this. So with the example of the diet one that we gave This diet is so easy to follow You will have success with it even if you fail that every other diet in your life So this is what you say to them once you know that this is their objection This is what's stopping them. So you tell them straight to their face. This will still work Even though You failed a bunch of times before now you can learn how to play guitar in just 10 days Even if you've never picked up a guitar in your life Again, if 10 days is not realistic make it 21 days It's important that it's realistic as well. But if you can learn in 10 days, then boom 10 days Next example, you can start building an investment portfolio even if you literally have no money I mean, you can see that it's not that complicated making Dismissing these objections dismissing these objections and the last example here You can become a certified panty dropper Even if your mirror cracks every time you look at that one's just funny with regards to one that they think Oh, I'm ugly. Therefore. I can't pick up chicks.  Stop thinking that you have a reason to not be able to do this So you can do this. Let me help you. Yeah, and it's uh, yeah, it's not that hard to overcome with these even if statements. Yeah So even if statements are great, but you can also Just address the rear's objections head on kind of like what I was saying before but you can make it even more direct Like in the investing niche Even a broke teenager can start investing today. You're basically saying you have no excuses You have no excuses to not get started and not buy this book For the programming niche, you would say something like so simple that your grandma could do it again You have no excuses Okay, so make them think if they can do it if a grandma can do it or a broke teenager can do it Then so can you and again give extremes those extremes are the most powerful Now again, you don't want to be too extreme But these are not so someone that your grandma could do it. There are grounds out there that can do it Like that's realistic. Exactly. That is realistic. Is it extreme? It's definitely extreme But there are grandmas that can learn some basic programming Mm-hmm And that is how you deal with and overcome last minute objections Now the reader like I was saying has no reason not to buy you have no reason you have no excuses So the final Parts of your book. This is the most fun one. This is my favorite because it's so easy. Yeah, it's so easy That's a call to action So the cta ak called action is the easiest step you just ask for the sale All the work has been done. You just need to tell them what to do, which is to buy your book Tell the customer exactly what you want them to do like exactly use the exact language of amazon word for word telling this If you want to Provide a big benefit then scroll up and click the add to cart button. Boom Call to action done completes description over Now add to cart is a better call to action than buy now because it's asking for less This is some extra advanced copywriting stuff And it's simple, but it's the next level of psychology stuff You don't need to know you don't need to know why you say add to cart and not buy now But it's because you're asking for less the less you ask the easier it is to get Now this has been proven. This has been scientifically in a laboratory proven to increase conversions I should have provided the statistics. I read it. It was like 13 percent or something like that And when we provide statistics then you trust us more that what we're telling you in this course It increases our credibility. Yeah, so just using it in the course Okay, copywriting inception a common mistake that publishers make is giving a weak close such as this book is for you or You need this book. These are not specific and not direct call to action Tell them exactly what to do Just tell me exactly what to do what we have here if you want to big benefit and scroll up and click the add to cart button They literally have to scroll up and then click that exact button that exact language So this is copy paste do not change the words from this. They're having bold There's no down their mind what they need to do unless amazon changes What the button says they won't I don't think so Now here you can see what the amazon buttons look like and also why your e-book and paperback book Descriptions are going to be slightly different. It all is just from the call to action So here on the left side we have for paperback books. This is what the buy button looks like It just says add to cart now add to cart and buy now They both in the end are supposed to lead to a sale But the statistics there are numbers that show saying add to cart increases conversions. So with that knowledge We should put add to cart for all of our call to actions And then on the right side, we have what the e-book button looks like So you want to say exactly what that button says there's no add to cart button. It's Buy now with one click. So you tell them scroll up click the buy now with one click button to get your book instantly This is what you say for e-book. These are the only changes that at least I can think of right now Between your e-book and paperback and the reason you write get your book instantly The reason we don't write for paperback is because you won't get it instantly Yeah, you have to wait for shipping if it did then I would include that as well because that's just another benefit Yeah of buying right now. Yeah, right So quickly to recap what the book description structure looks like. It's just the five Part structure that we talked about Headline story slash lead bullet points dealing with last minute objections and then the call to action It's really that simple Then you could see what the main objective with each one is right here. It says it right there this One slide contains A lot of powerful information, but this contains the What to do not how to do it. Okay, so you need to watch the rest of the lesson to figure out exactly how to do it And then finally we want to end this long lesson, which is getting pretty lengthy now with two rules We figure we just throw it in at the end because it is Good things to know so that when you finish writing your description apply these two rules So the first one is that you're talking to your reader not from your own perspective So maybe you accidentally do this if you're writing eyes like I will help you do this whatever whatever Turn all of your eyes to use This can be applied to everything within reasonable doubt that makes sense Most of them. Yeah, and then rule number two is Something called the 90 percent rule is 90 percent of the times that can be deleted Yeah, I didn't realize this until I had to point it out until I got to point it out So to do this just click control f or command f on mac Whatever whichever way you do it And then find all of the places in your description what says that Read it and if it is used unnecessarily then remove it, which is about 90 percent of the time Yeah, now there are sometimes well, you can't remove it. That's about the 10 percent But it just makes your writing much more clean and less wordy Yeah, less words is better when it comes to delivering your message. You just have to get to the point. Yeah, exactly And then the final slide We just want to say that you should write your description in word or google docs that really doesn't matter And when you're writing don't worry about formatting or anything else.  Okay And there is an in-depth lesson about how to format your book description the best way Which might take you like just as much time as writing yourself Because you have to learn some coding. I don't want to scare you But that's just the fact of the matter. Um, we'll save the rest for that lesson And we also have an upcoming lesson where we will share a Description that we wrote. It's a great example of a very good book description. Yes You can see what it looks like all put together. Yes It is simply the description for our puppy training book that we wrote following this five part structure Yeah, okay, so this is just how to best and most easily and most effectively Break down a book description and write one that will sell like crazy. Yeah, so with all that said We will see you guys in the next lesson. Have a good day. Goodbye


My name is Thomas and I'm autistic and most people might find that sight of a grown man spinning around on a hoop fairly disarming but for me I have a different sensory system. I find the act of spinning and moving to be the most euphoric, most relaxing thing that I can do.


Welcome back to the Breakfast in Plus TV Africa. Let's look at the issue of ASU and the salary and areas. The Academic Staff Union of Universities have received full salary for the month of November that's 2022. A senior member of the union at Bayaro University, Kano Meth is known in an interview. However, he said that the federal government refused to pay lecturers for eight months in which the union and back done strike. In October 2022, they were also paid pro-rata, that's half pay, according to the Minister of Labor and Employment Chris Ngige. Lecturers across the country have been protesting against the decision by the federal government. Meanwhile, the National Executive Council of the Union is expected to hold a crucial meeting in the coming days over the withheld salaries. We have Dr. Pita Ogondoro, an educationalist, a research and leader of Nigerian teachers, an online community of over 470,000 members. Ogondoro, it's good to have you join us. It's my pleasure. So quickly, how do you respond and react to this? What do you make of the situation? The government had asked the people to go back to the classrooms, these lecturers, that they were going to leave up to expectation, pay everything. And then the teachers honored the invitation. There was also even a court's order, which they respected. And now, you know, the government has paid salaries, but withholding arrears for eight months. The government is acting as a bully and that's irresponsible behavior. And the government is teaching the rest of us bad habits, bad attitudes. The government is telling the rest of the employers in our country that they can do anything they like with their employees and get away with it. The government, as we know, is Nigeria's biggest employer and is a kind of role model. So whatever the government does, it's likely to be what other employers are likely to copy. So I think that this is very unfortunate for all. The government hasn't yet recognized that education truly is a bad rock of development. And if we continue to toy with the people who operate in the higher education realm, we are actually trying in a very terrible way with the future of our country. Because you need great ideas. You need ideas that those who operate in the average hours produce to be able to deal with the enormous development challenges that confront Nigeria. Unfortunately for us, the politicians who are in our country obviously in the trades, they don't understand these things. And because they do not wear the shoe and therefore do not know where it pinches, they are not able to find themselves to be under pressure to fix the education problems that confront our country. Of course, you know that their own children are not here. They are all training abroad and they are putting the dollars that we do not have to keep their children in places where they get the best education, hoping that they will come back and control the rest of us. So definitely this is irresponsible behavior. And we are encouraging these highly skilled people to leave the shores of Nigeria and go out and work in center countries, which I think is a very unfortunate situation for us as a country. So in all of this, what options do you think is left for Asu? And her members? Well, now that it's obvious that the government is a bully, you know that the government is not just an employer. The government is also a regulator and of course a law enforcer. They have used the instrument of the court to compel university lecturers to return to the classroom. And so when you are dealing with the bully who seems to be omnipotent, you have to devise very crafty and innovative ways to take care of yourself. And so what the lecturers are going to do is to also withhold their knowledge. They might pretend to be in the classroom, but they will not be delivering the knowledge that we need to be competitive as a nation. That's option one.  Those who are in the health sector, whether they teach in universities or work in hospitals are already living in droves. So we are likely to get to a point within the next one year where even when the government begins to behave responsibly, they will not find people who will trust them enough to want to pick up employment in the high education sector. So this is a very sorry state for Nigeria. It's a very unfortunate situation where you have found ourselves in. Even if it's a sacrifice, the government should make it and pay university lecturers the money that is due to them. They should know if they are trained in industrial relations that this is what always happens when workers embark on industrial action, especially the kind that we have seen in the past eight months. These lecturers went on strike not in any responsible way. They gave notice, government put pain on paper, reached agreements with lecturers and they unfortunately failed to play according to the agreements. And then lecturers after two notice went on strike and you are refusing to give them that which is due to them. I think that we are doing Nigeria pick the surface and this pollution is said if we have a way and we are willing to try, we should then sweep them out of the places where they are. So but let's also look at some of the concerns that the government has raised over time. First of all, he said that it doesn't have resources, no funds to meet the demands of us. Don't you think that this is valid? Especially when we look at the zero remittance to the federation account where we can actually say that we are highly dependent on oil as an ending. We haven't been remitting nothing. And that's on the one hand. So if you look at the current economic situation, don't you think that government doesn't really have resources and funds to meet the demands of us? We'll probably pay the areas. Well, that's very logical. Tell me, supposing the strike didn't happen, wouldn't we have paid salary for those eight months? And education is not a sector that is expected to generate funds to pick up the bills that attend to the matters that happen in the education space. So if those lecturers didn't go on strike and they were teaching for those eight months, wouldn't they have been paid their salaries? The money that was budgeted for that sector, for that particular cost element, to take care of those eight months, what happened to that money? Was it not there? What happened to it? Who has used it to do something else? Who is that person? What's that person's name? And which bank is holding that money? We call it a subvention. Every month a certain amount of money is supposed to be allocated to universities and through the National Universities Commission. That money certainly was allocated by parliament last year. What happened to it? What have we used it to do? Has somebody probably put it in a fixed opposite account and is you didn't interest and we don't seem to know what they want to use that interest to do. So we shouldn't engage in this kind of irresponsible argument. We are behaving irresponsibly as a country and I think that parents are also behaving irresponsibly. Everybody seems to be thinking that as members are they are the problem. By the time all of them leave Nigeria and go to work in some other countries, that's when it will turn on all of us that we have not done ourselves any favor. So but how do we solve this issue? Like what exactly can we do to need the issue in the board for once and for all? Strike the back and forth with ASU. What exactly do we need to do? Whatever they have, whoever is holding the money for those eight months should bring it out. Let them pay and pay now. That's one. Two, for the longer term and to be able to pay on a sustainable basis, we should certainly sit down and agree with all the stakeholders in the industry as to how we are going to be able to deal with the expenses in the sector on a sustainable basis. The current model is not working where government is not going to be able to deliver on a sustainable basis because they are not charging parents for the kind of education that we want our children to receive. And so we have to engage in proper communication that will enable parents to commit to paying school fees in federal schools. The current model where the pay almost nothing is not working and we have to face that reality. And the politicians should stop being afraid. The thinking is that if we ask parents to pay for their children to receive good education in federal universities that they will not give them the votes anymore. But that's irresponsible behaviour and that's selfishness. Why are we worried more about the votes that will come in the future rather than the education we should give our children now that will help our country to move forward economically, socially, politically and technologically? So I think that we need to think better. We should stop worrying about votes and think more about development. And that's how people who have played as politicians in other countries have thought about the development of their countries and that's how come they have moved forward. So let's do the needful and do it very urgently because it's getting late for us. So many people are living in our country, people who have skills and this place has become very, very unattractive. Security challenges are there. Now we are adding the absence of pay for work that we have committed to. We are creating more and more problems that we may not be able to resolve in the next 50 years. All right, then Dr Pitao Gundura we have to go now. Thank you so much for being part of the show. We appreciate your time. It's my pleasure. And we just hope that our leaders and those according to him who are holding the funds and the money would release it. So there will be national peace. Dr Pitao Gundura is an educationalist. He is a research and leader of the Nigerian teachers online community of over 470,000 members. That's it. That's the science of a conversation on the breakfast. We'll join the newsroom at nine o'clock for the new spring. And if you miss out on a conversation it will be all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel who are plus TV Africa and plus TV Africa lifestyle. My name is Messier Bookmore. Do have a fantastic morning.


And can we rely on the Supreme Court? Oh, big question. This is Think Kekowai. It's the 11 o'clock clock on a given Monday. And we have Peter Haffenberg, a co-host and contributor. And we have Avi Soy for a regular contributor and guest here on history is here to help because we need help. Welcome to the show, you guys. Thank you. Hello, how to be here. Okay, Peter, at the risk of giving you too much time. Of course. I have a little talk watch here. Could you please introduce Avi and be nice. And could you also introduce the scope of our discussion this morning? I'm always nice and following Hemingway. No adjectives and no adverbs, very precisely. And how good to have you back, Avi. I think probably everybody knows you, but just in case you don't, and they don't, Avi Soyfer is the former dean of the Richardson School of Law here and pushed it into the top 100, Moseltop. And it's also a very well-recognized and respected con law scholar with publications here, there and everywhere. Jay and I have asked him to talk about, since we only have 30 minutes, try to have some very specific topics about the Supreme Court. And Jay and I wanted Avi in particular to talk about not just the workings of the court, but what he thought the current public status might do to this institution. The most recent Pew report had the Supreme Court just plummet in public accountability. So let me turn it over to Avi and Jay. Is that okay, Jay? Was that brief enough? Yeah, that's good. Let me give you the notes that I made while I thought about this all weekend. First of all, was it Aaron? Aaron in the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, you know NYU a bit. You were teaching there on sabbatical only last year. The court got an F, which I thought was interesting. And then it shifted to the right, but you know, isn't that okay? That's another question. And haven't we had this? This is my question to you both of you. Haven't we had this in the past? Why is this different? You know, it's like the Passover. Why is this shift to the right different from all the other shifts to the right? And how did we get here over 50 years? You know, Adam Cohen in his book writes about that. There are two books to consider.  And she wrote Justice on the Brink only recently in this year.  Are we already there? And Avi, where is it going? What's the dynamic that we can take from their questions in these cases on all these sensitive and highly politicized issues? Wow, sorry. Is that compound complex? Yes. Avi, what are you doing in the next two weeks? OK, you'll get some food and drink. Well, Jay, I'm sure she's proud to acknowledge that you are her brother-in-law. So there we are. You have a lot to be proud of. Linda, she's terrific. And she writes columns from the New York Times. She used to cover the court for a long time. And she's got a new book out, which is part of today's subject. But she really is a wonderfully knowledgeable and outspoken critic of the court, even though she knows them all and she knows the inner working is probably better than anybody. She's more outspoken these days than she ever was in 30 years in the past. I mean, how about the articles? I'm you familiar with all of them. Weaponizing, the court is weaponizing, gaslighting. And the court is, oh, I guess this refers to the Fifth Circuit, my favorite circuit. It's what did she call the Fifth Circuit, rogue, rogue. I mean, and other adjectives. These are outspoken words, maybe more than ever before. Well, Justice Sotomayor is very careful. She is very committed to, I think, very important things. But she talked about the stench. I mean, for a Supreme Court justice, to talk about the stench emanating from that body is really quite something. And there is a stench. I think there's no question about that. And part of it is because they're not playing by the usual rules. And they don't seem to care about the usual rules. So yes, we have had right-wing courts, in fact, for most of our history, I would say. So that's happened before. But the aggressive way in which they are trying to advance an agenda, which they're very clear about, and using things like the shadow docket, which has always not always been there, I guess, but has been there for a long, long time. But suddenly it's being used and abused in a way it never has before. And the shadow docket means they don't have to hear oral argument. There isn't a public attention to what's going on. They do it without briefs. They do it without oral argument. And they just decide something. And they just decide, well, this is an emergency. And what they think of as an emergency might be pandemic rules, which they believe the majority of the court believe interfered with re-exercising religion. But they don't think what's going on in Texas right now, with abortion, is an emergency. I think the public is paying more attention to the court than for a long, long time. That may be a good thing in the long run. But they're paying attention with holding their noses. And I think that is actually unusual, if not unprecedented. All that considered, the public can't do much about it. And I think what shows in these last few arguments and what they're doing on cert is they're picking Trump issues, they're picking right-wing issues, and they don't care what we think. I don't know if that's arrogance or what. They've driven even Chief Justice Roberts far from where they were, and probably where he was, because they don't seem concerned about the institution. The court is an institution. And he suddenly is siding fairly frequently with the so-called liberal practices. And Gorsuch, in particular, has been going after Roberts in a pretty personal way of not being part of the team. Well, but was it Roberts who said that the most important thing is we have to preserve the institution? They're not preserving the institution. They're undermining the institution. It's not just public confidence. It's a rational analysis of what they're doing and a gaslighting thing. And it seems to me that no one can ever trust them again. Well, I wouldn't go that far. Let's hope. One can be optimistic ever, ever, Jay? I know I'm running for some optimism around here somewhere. But it is true that the justices who are leading, and we don't know about Justice Barrett much yet. So there's a little bit of shred, maybe, of hope there that she made now that she has this appointment for life. I turn out to be a surprise in some ways. I don't expect big surprises. But the justices who are leading this, including Justice Barrett, are very young. So they will be there for a long, long time. Well, I'm sure you can give me examples of justices over the years of the republic who started out conservative, who started out destructive negative and advancing the president who appointed them, his agenda or agenda well has been her. Well, at this time, a query whether that's going to happen. Well, those are usually surprises. So we don't know if it's going to happen. But I think that some of the recent surprises were Harry Blackman for sure. Justice Souter more quietly. On the other side, Frankfurter was regarded as a radical. And then he became probably the most conservative member of the Warren court. So there are surprises. And there's something to the fact that it's collegial. Sometimes they listen to each other. And it may be that Roberts is effective as a leader of a collegial body. We'll see. But Barrett has been noteworthy for not being part of the Alito or such. And to some extent, Kavanaugh team so far, in all cases, he is certainly sometimes. And I think what's really telling, but also dangerous is a lot of these things are done in ways that the public doesn't quite understand like the shadow docket. We ought to be paying attention. And at least there's some covers for an oral argument and the public presumably not following line by line, but they learned something about what went on today or yesterday at the Supreme Court. And when they're doing this, the public doesn't know. You think the press is giving us good reporting on what the court is doing and not doing? Not as good as when Linda Greenhouse was doing it. Well, you know, there's two books out. I suggest to you, this is a constitutional lawyer's delight right now. This is what justifies all the difficulty of learning constitutional law to be able to comment on it now. And I am hoping that the public will get the same, you know, level of interest. I'm not sure that's gonna happen though, because it's complicated. Well, so Adam Littak is doing a good job, I think, for the times. I didn't mean to say he wasn't. And Anthony Lewis was a very good reporter covering the court for a long time. One of the issues, and it's a big issue in our time, is that there is a lot more information out there. There are other people covering the court. It isn't just three channels on TV and the New York Times and the Washington Post. And so you can kind of find whatever you want as a member of the public. And that can be on your side and you don't have to listen to the other side. So I think that playing it right down the middle of being careful is very important in reporting and remain so. But the reporting now is much more disparate. So what does the public think of the court? We know from some polling results that the court has gone down in its prestige recently. It has gone down in its prestige before, by the way, including one of the famous issues with the court was when they were striking down much of the New Deal. And that became a hot potato, a political issue. And FDR decided to try to pack the court. And that turned out even for a brilliant politician such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt clearly was to be a disaster. It turned out that the public wouldn't stand for it. Now neither would some insiders, including Felix Frankfurter who had been an ally. But it's a third rail, I think, to pack the court. So one of the proposals that's kicking around is to add justices. The problem with that is it has been done in the past both shrinking and expanding the membership. It doesn't have to be nine. It's not in the constitution. But once you do it, then if your team loses in the next election, then they do it and so on. And then the court loses even more prestige. I think term limits is a much more sensible proposal. And it is being taken somewhat seriously. Although this commission that President Biden set up, I don't know exactly what it was supposed to do, except perhaps reduce the pressure on President Biden. But it sounds like you're not gonna do anything much. They were more open to term limits than they were for packing apparently. Is the commission bipartisan? Yeah. That explains it. If you're looking for delay, try bipartisan. Anyway, so there are some issues we should talk about and where they're going and what effect they have on all this, what you're describing. For example, abortion. It seems clear that abortions going away that the women's reproductive rights are going away. When they get their hands on it, it's all finished. And Amy Barrett will be at the center of that. I think Kavanaugh will be too. And so the question I put to you, Avi, is how does that affect public opinion? Because remember, the half the country is right wing here. Well, I think actually abortions are a very interesting example of several things. First of all, Roe versus Wade was really changed even though it survived. It has become much harder to get an abortion than it was. There's a famous incident when the court in Scalia in particular thought they were going to overrule it and they didn't. And they stressed the importance of stare decisis of precedent. And that's important now as they're overruling all these precedents. And that was a big surprise to Scalia. A very angry Scalia was seen yelling at Justice Kennedy on his lawn one Saturday. So Roe has been eviscerated. And the undue burden test is of course a very subjective test. And that's where we are now.  But doesn't that take the burden off? Justice Barrett had to say. So there is something to what Jay just suggested in her opinion at least. So I think, I have a bet with someone who does constitutional law that they will not overrule Roe versus Wade because I think if they did, that would affect voter turnout very significantly. So I think they will continue to narrow, narrow, narrow but not on its face overrule Roe versus Wade. Are you suggesting the members of our esteemed Supreme Court would care about voter turnout? Isn't that highly political? Mr. Dooley, way back at the time of imperialism and the insular cases and what to do about the territory of Hawaii talked about how the Supreme Court follows the election returns. He did it with his fake Irish dialogue. We've got to get him to follow, think tech Hawaii. Okay, so the thing about abortion is, I wanted to ask you, I think Linda Greenhouse and was talking about disingenuous gaslighting statements by the Supreme Court. And one of the most interesting examples of that which I don't fully understand, maybe you do, she said that Kavanaugh and his questioning pointed out that there had been many cases over the years where the Supreme Court has reversed a right of years and years in place. And so the question is, why is that disingenuous? There have been a lot of cases where the Supreme Court has reversed itself. Why can't it do that in Roe? Well, the Supreme Court has reversed itself lots of times and sometimes to the good which should be said, the Supreme Court was complicit in racial discrimination for a long, long time. They were complicit in many other things. The famous case that I think is worth at least, maybe as a corrective is a Frankfurter opinion called Gobitis, which said, okay, the citizenship is very important. This is 1940, 41. So understandable that he thought citizenship was very important, patriotism. And so we can mandate that school kids have to salute the flag. And it was sort of a fascist salute. It was a straight arm salute. And Jehovah's Witnesses said that interferes with our rights as parent and the rights of our children. And the Supreme Court said, a flock, patriotism is that important. So that three and a half years later, four years later, the Supreme Court reversed that. And it's brilliant language written by Justice Jackson for the court about how important First Amendment is. And we can't be forcing beliefs on people. And that's 1944. So the war was still going on. So that's a reversal that we can applaud. So I don't think we should say never reverse or always follow precedent. Because overall the precedents are bad in many areas. And the Warren court was the exception. And some of us who went to law school or went to college or grew up with the Warren court, I think have a falsely optimistic view of the court and what it is about. So there are rights and there are rights not exactly respond to your question. One of the differences now though is that some of the justices have been signaling, oh, we want a case, please send us a case. We want to overrule this precedent. And overruling ought to be done in gingerly fashion when it's done and carefully. And one thinks about the role of precedent because the rule of law does rely on precedent, at least in our country for a long time. Now, precedent is a break on what people may want to do right now. So precedent isn't all good and all bad, but at least you should take seriously changing the law from the top when they do have the final word, not because they're right, but because they're final, as Brandeis said. Not because they're right, because they're final. You mentioned First Amendment and that's really my next question to you. I mean, one of the suggestions here is that court and perhaps the GOP itself has moved, not perhaps for real, the GOP has moved into religion. And the First Amendment has two provisions. So one is you should not have the government establish a religion. And the other is you should not stand in the way of freedom of religion. And that's getting all confused now, only in the past 20 years or so, at least according to my growing up with the Constitution, my limited growing up with the Constitution. We have turned into legally a country that puts religion on a very high pedestal, higher than the First Amendment really intended, I'm sure. But we are now pushing it further. And if you ask for some justification about the Roe v. Wade direction here, it's got to be a large part religion. Is this good? Well, I think we should bring Peter into the conversation because we think in the United States that it's very important not to have an established religion, but Peter's an expert about England and English history. And we consider them mildly civilized at least and they have an established church. What do you know? Yeah. But I do think that the establishment clause has been very important and that this court doesn't care about the establishment clause. So there's tension between those two as you just said, Jay. I'm pleased that you think you're grown up now because some of us have questions about you growing up, but there we are. They were regarded as intention and it's been a sort of sneaky way the court has done it, which is to say, we're gonna treat religion the same as we treat other First Amendment figures and actors. And look, they're excluded from the public square. Now, whether religion really is or isn't in this country is another question. I don't think they're excluded, but the way the line goes is we've got to just let them in equally. And it turns out that they are more equal than others. And the establishment clause has kind of just disappeared almost in this analysis. Peter. Yeah, Peter. Peter, you're civilized. I know you are. Fairly. Only for this half hour or so. So a couple of comments. First of all, of course, Avi. Thank you very, very much. I would say, Jay, to your big question is that, look, it has been weaponized before. The court has been a weapon before. But I think one person with the response to Kavanaugh quite clearly and then Avi, you can correct me. In the past, particularly the cases he was referring to was a matter of a precedent that had denied rights, being overthrown so a new decision could expand rights. And it seems to me what we have here is particularly in the abortion case, the theological decision that a uterus has the same rights as a woman. And so the argument is that they too are expanding rights where, of course, they are not. I think in that case, in response to your question about religion, it is clearly guiding these folks. And I think people like Alito have made no poems about it. And the recent appointee may be very strongly in what they have misnamed the right to life. And it's not really a scientific definition. I think, again, Avi, you can help us here. Maybe the court made a mistake by having viability as the determining line. Because with science, viability can change. And Roe v. Wade never write absolutely said a woman has the absolute right to an abortion. And maybe you can correct me, but looking back historically, it seems that the viability question opened up, right? So now you have the scientific ability to hear the heart. And in public opinion, right? That shifts towards a life itself. So, does Jay, does that help answer? Yeah, but I just want to put one other thing on the table is the Supreme Court either has considered or is considering the equal right to religion to give the same amount of money to parochial schools that it gives to public schools. Now, that is really upside down as far as I can see. They're saying, I think it was Kavanaugh that said, well, we shouldn't give more money to one religion than another, but then we shouldn't give more money to public schools than private schools. And before you know it, public schools are cut out. This is troubling because, A, it reinforces the whole notion Supreme Court and its constituency, can I use that term, is driven by religion. It's not just Roe v. Wade, it's the whole enchilada. Avi, am I right? I think it's more than religion though. And I think that Owen's book makes this quite clear. This is not just a religious issue. This is also a class and race issue because by promoting private schools, you're generally promoting, first of all, or well off the religion. And basically this is an attempt to bifurcate the education system. So I agree with you, it's religion, but behind religion, I think Owen, it's very important here. This has been a 50-year strategy. So I would disagree with you a little bit, Jay, in that to me, Trump is just a poster child. This has been a 50-year strategy of the Federalist Society. It's been a 50-year strategy of the right and conservative in America to deny rights and access to people of color. It's been an effort to ensure that employers' rights are supreme over workers. And here's where Avi, I don't think that Roberts is a neutral umpire. Roberts' career has been anti-voting rights and it has been entirely pro-business versus labor. And I think one of the difficulties is we focus on hot button issues, which we should, right? But in doing so, I think we've also ignored a lot of the smaller cases, which over the past generation or two have ensured it's not just voting rights, right? It's African-Americans access to work. It's African-Americans access to decent education, right? It's not just voting rights. It's women's access to education. It's women's access to work, not just women's access to birth control. And so to me, I look at this six to three and to me it looks like the 50 year war is over. And that's the difference I see and we've talked about this before. Six to three is not five to four. Like Roberts can look good, right? Roberts can actually join the other three, but what he really wants can still win by four, right? When it was closer by four, you know, he had to have compromise. And I think that's what's gonna be missing. The ability to have some kind of compromise. Now the final point just briefly is US has taken the choice which is not Britain's and not France's. And so we're in a muddle. We've been in a muddle for over 200 years. The French Revolution did not just secularize the state, it secularized society. America has never been a secular society. Religion has always been part of public life. And in Britain, Britain took the Plycee v. Ferguson option and funded private religious schools and just set up front, will fund private religious schools. So we've been wandering and stumbling for 200 years because we haven't chosen either of those to straightforward rather reasonable paths. We do not have a secular society. We have a highly religious society. I think that's absolutely right. And certainly Peter underscores important points which are lost, I think on the general public. And that is the way in which the court has been a friend of business, I would say over time as well as recently. And Roberts is certainly where you put them Peter. Although I wanna go back to the question that the Jay asked, I guess. And that is about the expansion of rights and what Peter has just stressed. And that is sometimes the expansion of right can be put at the doorstep of the current and the recent court. And one very good example and very troublesome example is the Second Amendment, the right of individuals to have guns. And for a long, long time, the Supreme Court said no to that claim over and over again. So they overruled precedent to expand rights if you think there is something in the Second Amendment for individual rights. There really isn't. And the way Scalia's so-called text was self-proclaimed, well, he said he wasn't crazy, but he says that the Second Amendment naturally has two clauses, which allows him to talk about the second one and not the first, which is about the militia, which is what the right really historically was about for the most part. And then the court interestingly didn't touch it again, except to say it applies to states in the McDonald case. So 2008 is the heller decision where Scalia does that. Six years later, McDonald, okay, that part of the bill of rights applies to the states. Fine. But there are all sorts of rules and regulations passed by cities and passed by states regulating this new individual right. Well, now we may learn that they're unconstitutional, that the second, because that case is before the court right now, and it's very scary because it looks very likely that they're gonna say, oh, those rules and regulations, they go too far.  And it isn't historically in the text, and it isn't historically what the court has been saying. So sometimes creating or discovering rights can be dangerous too. So part of my optimism, and I get kitted about being an optimist by both of these two, there's a line in Faulkner somewhere where he says, whoever wins, it won't be for good and it won't be for long. And I think that's one of the other things we see about the court. As I said, they're young justices, but who knows? Who knows? What happened with the FDR and the court was suddenly there were deaths and resignations and he got to remake the court. And so the Supreme Court stopping the enemy of the new deal, famously in 1937, having struck down a four or five years worth of whatever they could reach. Well, should Stephen Breyer retire? Because if he retires, it's gonna be very hard for Joe Biden to replace him with a Democrat before the next election. And the Republicans will delay that as much as they can. Should he retire? Do you know how the next election is gonna come out, Jay? Maybe they'll be a solid Democratic majority in the Senate. I may not know, but I'm willing to place a large bet with you about that. What, dinner? Okay, not a large majority. Let me go to something that both of you have touched on and I think we really need to talk about. So, you know, talk about the first as a rather the second amendment. That's really important to public security. It's important to keeping people, you know, off the streets and not doing violence because violence leads to and is part of the whole notion of insurrection, if you will. And so the Supreme Court, you know, if they, you know, undermine the regulation of guns, gun control, they're really asking for trouble. And that takes us to the next part of it is, you know, they are doing things that undermine our democracy when they don't enforce voting rights. When they take cases that are, you know, undermining voting rights, wouldn't that be sort of the most central thing that a Supreme Court of this country should be concerned with? The, you know, the Ben Franklin preservation of our republic, our democracy, and public security, which is part of it. You know, it seems to me they're really tampering with something very dangerous when they take anti-democratic cases and rule anti-democratically. Well, I think you're right. And I think that that is a tradition to be valued and cherished in all those, it's a tradition as Peter pointed out, which was a pretty narrow tradition, right? So at the time of the early years of the constitution, the framing in the early years, of course, women didn't get to vote, blacks didn't get it. You had to be a property and so on and so forth. So the vote has expanded not so much by Supreme Court decisions. Supreme Court's been pretty bad about the vote all along. But maybe the worst example of all is a Robert's opinion, Shelby County. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is very significant. And a lot of blood was shed to get that passed. And I don't mean that year. I mean, for a long time in civil rights movement. And what he says in that decision in 2013 is, well, we needed it once, but we don't need it anymore. Now, since when does Congress have power only as long as it keeps up with current needs? I mean, that's a whole new doctrine. Then he relies on federalism on state's right. And he mis-herofraises what the 10th Amendment says. He says, in two different ways, something it doesn't say. He says what he wants it to say. Now that's sloppy or it's planting seeds for the future. So the vote, very important, absolutely right about that and absolutely being limited by this court, including July 1st, where Arizona did two things to change its voting laws. One was to say, you can't bundle rights, you can't, sorry, bundle ballots. The reason that's important in Arizona is that a lot of Native Americans live far away from mailboxes. And so someone would bring in a ballots from a reservation as it were. And that was said, oh, you can't do that anymore. So it has an impact, and you could say a racial ethnic impact, which should have mattered under the Voting Rights Act. And not so much as Alito, voting is a burden anyway. And the other thing they did was say, if you vote in the wrong precinct, we'll throw it out. Now, they kept changing where the precincts were. Well, what do you know? Most places you vote in the wrong precinct are sort of a chance to review where and so on. But no, we just throw them out. And he says, not a problem. You know that, so Shelby County said, you can still have vote in section two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And he's now limiting that too. So not much concern for the vote. And I think correctly, as Jay just said, the vote is really supposed to be the base, right? From which other things flow. They also said bad things about campaign finance and so on, but for another day. For another day, but you know, I just wonder, I'm trying to put myself in the Supreme Court building, I wonder if you've ever tried to do this. I'll be trying to figure out, how they conduct themselves there. And do they know their gaslighting? Do they know they're throwing out norms? Do they know they're risking the Republic? And do they write memos to each other about that? Do they talk about it over a cup of coffee? Or do they not know at all? And not even discuss it. I really wonder how it works in there. Do you have an idea? Well, it used to be that they talk among themselves a fair amount. Then they sort of stopped doing that, but they did it through the clerks. So, Frankfurter famously was very good about encouraging, talking to them. And so, Frankfurter's clerk would talk to Douglas's clerk and maybe they would, but now they have their own little offices that are self-contained. And many of the clerks, there are too many clerks people believe, but many of the clerks wind up getting new paragraphs in the opinion just so he'll, or she will feel good. So that we get longer opinions, we get much less in the way of reaching a common result through discussion. I think it's a real problem. Yeah, and it shows. Peter, we're almost out of time, Peter. I wonder if you could comment on all of that and try to summarize the prognostications that are inherent in this discussion. We'll try to do that in two and a half minutes. If Jay's original question was really, what is the Supreme Court and what it's worth for, if anything, I think Abbey has given us a very pragmatic approach. There are problems. He seems somewhat optimistic though that those problems might not be a nuclear option for the court. We still have decisions awaiting, right? The abortion and that uncontrolled decisions. And so I think Abbey has suggested to us that we need to pay some attention to how those decisions are made, not just the end results. And that gets back into, you know, Jay's broader question about the transparency of a democracy. You know, as Toby Ziegler said in West Wing, you don't wanna see how a sausage is being made. And in this case, Justice Breyer agreed. He had an interview a couple of weeks ago about his book and he is a thumbs down on transparency. So we're sort of left with Abbey's optimism and Breyer's inability for us to actually confirm that optimism. So in a way, we're back to where we started this show, which is do we have faith in the institution? In other words, can I believe in the Supreme Court like I believe in my car will work without knowing how the battery actually operate? Even your car works, wait a minute. Barely, barely. I'm not quite sure we have. That is another show. Yeah, all the things Abbey said that I think was most perceptive and disturbing is that the Supreme Court is unlike anything else.  So in other words, you go to your website already with the view about the court and you don't really have what Jonathan Roth with all the constitution of knowledge, which is a book I recommend. That the constitution... Yeah, sorry. One more bit of optimism in a way. So as bad as this court is, and I certainly agree with that, Trump broke out over and over again in both state and federal court systems, including the United States Supreme Court when he tried, what, 60 times. So there is still some respectable something there. I hear from my dear friends, my dear friend, you and Jay both give Trump too much credit. I'm not giving Trump credit. No, in other words they don't really care about that. They don't care about Trump. They have, in the 50 years of the federal society, Trump is just like with the evangelicals, he is a vessel of God. He is the agent for... Oh my God, this is a family show, Peter. So let me just put one more question to you guys, both of you, before we close. And as we do have three, last time I looked, we had three branches of government. Do you have more confidence in the Supreme Court or more confidence in the United States Senate? Which one, Trump's? The NBA commissioner? I have more confidence in the NBA commissioner. Okay, so for all that we've said, the Supreme Court, unlike most people in Washington or most people, I guess in government more generally, they put things in writing. They put it out there. They don't just give you the result. So at least that keeps those of us who do constitutional law with material to talk about, new things to teach about. But it also, there is some responsibility in that and actually some transparency. It's not to say that they're actually saying what their gut might have led them to say, but they try to explain. And then we all get to say, wait a minute, that's not the way it works. So that's not what that precedent said. But you're absolutely right. Our newspaper, among many others, has this kind of daily quiz, our Star Advertiser. And what did you think of such a, there's not even a pretense in anyone read the opinion, right? Just what did you think of it? And so we're very result oriented and it is a problem. I'm gonna give you- Which one do you have more confidence in? I have more confidence in the executive branch because- I didn't ask that. Yes, you did. That's one of the small branches and little twig because, and this will probably date me and my father, the federal executive branch is a bureaucracy. And historically, bureaucracies, as we even know during the Trump administration, we're able to stop things from happening which were overly radical. And that's a lesson from Max Weber and that's a lesson from history. Don't pay attention to the appointees. Pay attention to the lower members of the bureaucracy. When people get upset, they'll say they're not elected but quite often they are the experts who have an institutional memory and actually have a much better respect for the public interest. The public doesn't have much respect for the public interest. The bureaucracy has respect for the public interest. So I'm going with the executive branch and I'm gonna say something even more surprising that the current head of that executive branch is quietly getting some things done. He's gonna lose on the big issues but he's quietly actually gotten some very important things done because the ability to use that rock. So I'll give you a slightly different answer. I'm very disappointed in the legislative range. That's when I used to work and I think that there's a real problem there. I'm a little worried that the Senate has actually broken it should be a topic for another discussion. But I'm very worried about that. Oh true, but I'll be against the last word. Of course. Since when? For years. So some of Peter's optimism about civil service has to do with his study in England and career civil servants who really are seeing themselves as civil servants. But I think there's much to what Peter says and it isn't just federal. People did their jobs often under pressure and that is why we know that was a big lie, right? Because there were people who were on the spot and a lot of them were Republicans. And so there's something to be said for doing your job and that gets back to constitutional faith, I think for all the problems we've been talking about. There is faith in this system for all its warts, its flaws, its crevices, so let's keep at it. Right. Constitutional law and constitutional history has never been so interesting and important. Thank you, Abi Soyfer. Thank you, Peter Hoffenberg. Great discussion. We'll do it again. I promise so much more to cover. Aloha. Thank you.


In the very first assignment I had included a link to hypothesis tips for annotating and as well as another link to I think it was another University Washington State I'm not sure but that had a good description of how to annotate what you're trying to achieve with annotating and then I gave them my own instructions which for for the first article I asked them to make comments between pages one and ten and they didn't have to read all of that material and then that they had to make an equal amount of comments on the second half of the article and they should they should bring up five vocabulary words that they had looked up and then also trace the meaning of misogyny and what it meant for these different authors over time and so their comments were really directed at analyzing the article itself and I was able to see what they thought I was able to see what kind of words they looked up which were surprising to me because a lot of times it was vocabulary that I would have thought they knew but it just it just kind of reinforces how difficult it is for them to transition from shorter texts to longer texts and then you know academic texts so that I think in itself was a good experience and then seeing that they all completed the task the first assignment 100% of the students completed the task because they were held accountable for it and I don't think they would have done that in the class if I had just said read this part of the article and then come in and we're gonna discuss it they they would not have read it so by the time we got to class we were able to have this discussion and talk about it