Gary Halbert was the "Prince of Print"—and his letters, especially the Boron Letters, remain the closest thing copywriting has to sacred texts. Here's who he was, what the letters teach, and how to train with his method today.
The Boron Letters
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Key lessons
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The copywork method
Gary Halbert (1938–2007) was arguably the greatest direct-mail copywriter who ever lived. His "Coat-of-Arms" letter—a one-page pitch for a personalized family-crest report—became one of the most-mailed sales letters in history, sent to hundreds of millions of households. For decades his newsletter, The Gary C. Halbert Letter, was the industry's insider education; almost every well-known copywriter working today cites him as an influence.
What made Halbert different wasn't polish. It was voice. His letters read like a brilliant, slightly dangerous friend grabbing you by the collar—funny, blunt, and impossible to put down. That voice is exactly what students try to absorb when they copy his work.
In 1984, Halbert served a sentence at Boron Federal Prison Camp in the Mojave Desert. From his cell, he wrote a series of letters to his teenage son, Bond—a mix of life advice, fitness routines, and the most practical copywriting instruction ever put on paper. Bond later published them as The Boron Letters, and the book became required reading in the field.
The letters cover finding hungry markets, building mailing lists, writing personal-sounding copy, and the discipline of daily work. One line captures the whole philosophy of market-first selling:
"The only advantage I want is... a starving crowd!"
— Gary Halbert, The Boron Letters (on what he'd want if he were selling hamburgers)
A note on copyright: the Boron Letters and Halbert's newsletters are copyrighted works, so you won't find them reproduced here—just analysis and short quotes. Buy the book; it costs less than lunch and repays it a thousandfold.
Six ideas that show up again and again—in the Boron Letters and the newsletter.
Find a starving crowd
Asked what advantage he'd want selling hamburgers, Halbert's answer wasn't a better recipe or location—it was a starving crowd. The market matters more than the copy. Become, in his words, "a student of markets" before you write a single headline.
Get into the A-pile
People sort mail into two piles: personal-looking letters they open (the A-pile) and obvious ads they toss (the B-pile). Halbert obsessed over making sales letters look and read like a letter from a friend. Today the same rule decides which emails get opened.
AIDA, executed ruthlessly
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Halbert didn't invent the formula, but the Boron Letters walk through it with rare clarity—earn attention honestly, build desire with specifics, and always tell the reader exactly what to do next.
Write in a personal voice
The letters read like a father talking to his son—because they are. Halbert's copy sounds like one person writing to one person, never a company addressing a market. That intimacy is why his letters still get read cover to cover.
Motion beats meditation
A recurring Halbert theme: doers out-learn thinkers. Don't study copywriting forever—write, mail, measure, repeat. The daily copywork habit he prescribed is this principle applied to training.
Copy great letters by hand
Halbert's most famous training advice: hand-copy the classic sales letters until their rhythm and structure become part of you. He considered it non-negotiable for anyone serious about the craft.
Halbert's prescription for learning the craft was blunt: get the classic sales letters and copy them out by hand, over and over, until their rhythm becomes yours. Generations of copywriters—including the founders of programs like Copy That and CopyHour—built their skills doing exactly this. (We've reviewed both: Copy That and CopyHour.)
The reason it works is simple: copying is active, reading is passive. When you reproduce a letter word-by-word, you're forced through every decision the writer made—sentence length, transitions, where the proof lands, when the ask comes. Do it daily and the patterns become instinct. Our guide to how to practice copywriting breaks down the full method, and our copywriting exercises turn it into structured drills.
Halbert's letters are copyrighted—but the masters he learned from are public domain. Type this Claude Hopkins passage:
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Scientific Advertising (1923) — Claude Hopkins
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What are the Boron Letters?
A series of letters Gary Halbert wrote to his son Bond in 1984 while serving time at Boron Federal Prison Camp in California. Part life advice, part copywriting masterclass, they were later published as a book (The Boron Letters) and are widely considered essential reading for copywriters. The book is still in copyright, so buy it or read it through official channels—it's worth it.
Who was Gary Halbert?
Gary Halbert (1938–2007), known as 'The Prince of Print,' was one of the most successful direct-mail copywriters ever. His 'Coat-of-Arms' family-crest letter became one of the most-mailed sales letters in history, and his newsletter, The Gary C. Halbert Letter, taught a generation of copywriters. Nearly every big name in modern direct response cites him as an influence.
Why do copywriters hand-copy Gary Halbert's letters?
Because Halbert told them to—and it works. Copying a great sales letter word-for-word forces you to feel every choice: where sentences break, when the pitch turns, how the voice stays personal. Reading skims the surface; copying installs the patterns. It's the same copywork method Benjamin Franklin used, and the method CopyCraft turns into a daily typing practice.
Where can I read the Gary Halbert letters?
The Boron Letters are sold as a book, and many issues of The Gary Halbert Letter newsletter are archived on the official Halbert website run by his sons. We deliberately don't reproduce the letters here—they're copyrighted work. For practice, CopyCraft uses passages from public-domain masters like Claude Hopkins, John Caples-era classics, Hemingway, and Lincoln, which teach the same fundamentals Halbert preached.
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