BE SURE TO HAVE A HOOK An effective hook appeals to short-term interests (aka our selfishness and impatience) but is connected to a long-term promise. When you see a prompt to “Sign Up in Seconds to Organize Your Life,” it’s a hook. The headlines we read in newspapers are hooks. Dating sites are full of hooks. Let’s take the process of purchasing a book as an example. Regardless of how well written and interesting it may be, the book is nothing but hundreds of pages of black-and-white words (or a digital file) until you actually commit to reading it. The hook, in this case, is the cover. The
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