# The Copyselling System *By Joanna Wiebe. BenBella Books, 21 July 2026. Wiebe, founder of Copyhackers and self-styled "original conversion copywriter", sets out her agency's method for writing marketing copy as a sales process rather than a writing exercise ("copyselling"). The system starts by finding the growth constraint, gathers voice-of-customer (VOC) language, maps it onto a 36-beat "Message Matrix" ordered by the stages of awareness, drafts with formulas, polishes with her "Seven Sweeps", then validates and tests. AI is given the job of sorting research, not writing the copy.* > **What I actually read.** The book is four months old and in copyright; there is no legal free copy, and I did not read it. Its free Chapter 1 sits behind an email sign-up on copysellingbook.com, which I did not do. What I used: > - **The contents list** on Google Books (limited preview; Google blocked search-inside from here). > - **The publisher and author pages** (BenBella, Simon & Schuster, copysellingbook.com, copysellingbook.com/book), which name the main frameworks and the case results. > - **Wiebe's own account of the system** in the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast interview (24 Sept 2026, full transcript), her LinkedIn post listing beats 10–18 of the Message Matrix, and a SlideShare deck of her conference talk that shows the matrix's beat names. > > The outline below therefore follows the chapter titles, with content filled in from what Wiebe and her publisher have said in public. Chapter-level detail beyond that is **unverified**. No page numbers are given because I had none. Related in this vault: the source video [[Video Summaries/Joanna Wiebe/The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life]], which also sent [[Book Summaries/Snyder, Blake/Save the Cat! - Blake Snyder|Save the Cat!]] to the queue; Donald Miller's [[Book Summaries/Miller, Donald/Building a StoryBrand - Donald Miller|Building a StoryBrand]] is a neighbouring marketing-message system. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *The Copyselling System: Write to Sell with the Secret Formula for Maximizing Revenue*. The audiobook carries a different subtitle: *The Secret System for Driving Conversions and Maximizing Revenue* (NetGalley, Amazon audio listing). Wiebe says the publisher chose the subtitle (Duct Tape interview, ~00:48) | | Author | Joanna (Jo) Wiebe, founder of Copyhackers, Kelowna, BC | | Publisher | BenBella Books, distributed by Simon & Schuster; published 21 July 2026 | | Formats | Trade paperback, 312 pp., ISBN 978-1-63774-888-6 (ISBN-10 1637748884), list $21.95. Ebook ISBN 978-1-63774-889-3, $13.99 (Kindle ASIN B0FXBKCHFS). No hardcover found | | Audiobook | **Yes, unabridged.** Brilliance Audio, 21 July 2026, read by Amber Battaglia, 8 h 26 min (Audible AU), ISBN 978-1-51139-076-7 | | Structure (Google Books contents) | Introduction; Key Terms; Part "Understanding the Copyselling System" (4 chapters); Part "Applying the Copyselling System" (12 chapters as listed); Resources; Notes; Index | | Catalog IDs | No Open Library record, LCCN or OCLC number found on 10 Nov 2026 | | Cover | [Copyhackers cover image](https://copyhackers.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Copyselling_FrontCover_FINAL-scaled.jpg) | | Blurbs | April Dunford, Bob Moesta, Wes Bush, Peep Laja, Dan Martell, Andy Crestodina (copysellingbook.com) | **Where it came up.** - Video: Joanna Wiebe, ["The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCnxnaVg0bY) (published 29 Jan 2026, 13:58). The book is **not spoken in the video**; the video description links copysellingbook.com/book with the line "Get the book on finding a story worth telling" (per the Video Summaries note). The book is about sales copy, not storytelling as such, though Wiebe calls the 36 beats "moments in a prospect's storyline" and lists the hero's journey among its influences. - Requested by Video Summaries on 2026-11-07. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Joanna Wiebe/The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference and catalog pages.** - Publisher: [BenBella Books](https://benbellabooks.com/shop/the-copyselling-system/); distributor [Simon & Schuster](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Copyselling-System/Joanna-Wiebe/9781637748886). - Official site: [copysellingbook.com](https://copysellingbook.com/) and [Why this book is different](https://copysellingbook.com/book). - Open Library: **no record yet**; [search](https://openlibrary.org/search?q=copyselling+system). - Google Books: [uZuQEQAAQBAJ](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Copyselling_System.html?id=uZuQEQAAQBAJ) (limited preview, contents list). - WorldCat: no record found; [ISBN search](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=bn%3A9781637748886). **Free (legal).** - **No legal free full text.** In copyright (2026); not on Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive. - **Free sample:** the author offers Chapter 1 free in exchange for name and email at [copysellingbook.com](https://copysellingbook.com/). Google Books has a limited preview. Audible has the usual sample. - **Internet Archive lending / Open Library borrow:** not available. - **Libby/OverDrive: ebook, yes.** OverDrive title [12451043](https://lapl.overdrive.com/media/12451043) (found in the Los Angeles Public Library collection). Audiobook availability in Libby not confirmed. - **Hoopla:** not confirmed; [search Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=copyselling%20system). Brilliance audiobooks often appear there; check. **Paid.** - **Amazon print: yes**, paperback [1637748884](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637748884). - **Kindle: yes**, [B0FXBKCHFS](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FXBKCHFS). - **Audible: yes**, [Amazon audio B0H1STD6B2](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1STD6B2); also [Audible UK](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Copyselling-System-Audiobook/B0H1T45XQV) and [Audible AU](https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Copyselling-System-Audiobook/B0H1T8DP17). - Barnes & Noble: [paperback](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-copyselling-system-joanna-wiebe/1149602843). ## 3. Author biography Joanna Wiebe is a Canadian copywriter and marketing educator based in Kelowna, British Columbia. By her LinkedIn profile she took a BA (Honours, first class) in English at the University of Alberta (1997–2001) and an MA in Communications and Technology there (2008–2010), and worked as senior web writer for Intuit's Canadian sites (QuickBooks.ca, Intuit.ca) in Victoria from 2006 to 2011. She also says she worked at Conversion Rate Experts, which she calls the largest conversion agency of its day (Duct Tape interview). Her founding story, told on the Copyhackers site: after she helped a startup founder who had asked Hacker News for website feedback, dozens of founders asked for the same help, and she self-published a set of copywriting ebooks (four, by one page) launched on Hacker News; about $20K in sales persuaded her to start Copyhackers in 2011 (founded in Victoria; LinkedIn dates it to October 2011). The two Copyhackers pages disagree slightly on whether the HN episode was 2010 or 2011. Copyhackers built a training business (Copy School, 10x Emails, 10x Web Copy, Freelancing School, Master of AI Copy) and an agency. Copyhackers credits her with coining the term "conversion copywriting". She lists clients including Intuit, Canva, Shopify, SAP, Prezi, Sprout Social and AWS, and speaking at MozCon, INBOUND, CXL Live, Business of Software and MicroConf. Figures for students vary by source: "more than 5,000" Copy School students (publisher bio) and "over 70,000 professionals" trained (her podcast and LinkedIn). In 2026 the business was rebranding as "JO". This is her first trade-published book; she says she is writing two more. Sources: [Copyhackers, About Jo Wiebe](https://copyhackers.com/about-joanna-jo-wiebe/); [About Joanna Wiebe (Copywriter)](https://copyhackers.com/about-joanna-wiebe-copywriter/); [Copyhackers About Us](https://copyhackers.com/about-us/); [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/jwiebe); [Simon & Schuster author bio](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Copyselling-System/Joanna-Wiebe/9781637748886); [Copyhackers, "What is conversion copywriting?"](https://copyhackers.com/2022/06/what-is-conversion-copywriting/). All are her own or her company's pages; I found no independent biography. ## 4. Author interviews and talks - **Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, "Better Copy Starts With Listening to Your Customers"** (John Jantsch, 24 Sept 2026): [episode page with transcript](https://ducttapemarketing.com/better-copy-starts-with-listening-to-your-customers/). The best public walk-through of the book: seven-customer interviews, the thank-you-page survey question, constraint identification and the one-page solution design, the Message Matrix and stages of awareness, and AI for sorting VOC but not writing. - **"What if marketers could build a customer like engineers build products"** (conference talk deck, 2025/26; date not confirmed): [SlideShare](https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/what-if-marketers-could-build-a-customer-like-engineers-build-products-with-joanna-wiebe/284054691). Slides on the 36 beats, the system's influences, and using Claude projects. - **LinkedIn post "Help your prospects interpret their world"** (14 July 2026): [post](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jwiebe_help-your-prospects-interpret-their-world-activity-7482935719825448961-DGlr). Lists Message Matrix beats 10–18 (the category beats). - **Her YouTube channel and podcast feed** ([Apple Podcasts mirror](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joanna-wiebe-copywriting-marketing/id6805704598), marked as an unofficial fan feed): short lessons from Copy School; the source video comes from this channel. - **"The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life"** (29 Jan 2026): [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCnxnaVg0bY); vault summary [[Video Summaries/Joanna Wiebe/The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life]]. Storytelling techniques for copy; links the book in the description. ## 5. Summary ### Thesis Copy fails because teams guess: someone "takes a stab", a brainstorm produces a line, it ships and underperforms. The best copywriters are salespeople, not wordsmiths, and their work can be made a system. Find the real growth constraint, listen to your best customers, put their words into a fixed sequence of messages that walks a prospect from unaware to ready to buy, draft with proven formulas, polish and test. In Wiebe's words in the interview: "Stop thinking about it as writing, just stop. Now we're copyselling." The publisher's page quotes the book: "It's not writing. It's selling." ### Outline Chapter titles are from Google Books, in the order listed there. Content notes come from the author's and publisher's descriptions and the interview, **not from reading the chapters**. **Introduction** and **Key Terms.** A glossary is placed up front (terms such as VOC, stages of awareness, beats, constraint are the book's working vocabulary; the glossary's contents are not confirmed). **Part: Understanding the Copyselling System** 1. **First a Reset.** Unlearning copy as "writing"; the case against brainstorming and guessing (publisher's "Problem" summary). 2. **The Copyselling System.** The whole method. The slide deck says it combines "direct response copywriting, sales techniques, innovation and optimization models", naming stages of awareness, unique mechanisms, offer optimization, Jobs to Be Done, Straight Line selling, the hero's journey and the theory of constraints. 3. **The Message Matrix.** The 36-beat map of everything a prospect needs to hear, in order, across the stages of awareness (unaware → problem aware → solution/category aware → product aware → most aware). Wiebe says purchase happens from late product aware through most aware. One matrix per product per persona (deck). 4. **The 36 Beats.** The beats themselves. Wiebe's LinkedIn post gives beats 10–18, the category section: introduce the shape of the category; what the best solution would do differently; the full landscape; how the category is built against the buyer's wants; that competitors made it so; how it got there; the consequences of its flaws; the flawed options to say no to; what is new, next or novel. Other beat names on the deck include core problem match, failed solutions, "It's not just you", the blame game, kill the status quo, problem mechanism, solution mechanism, named unique mechanism, value proposition, value pillars, proof of who, proof of how vs competition, success stories with risk reversal, offer optimization and stacked offers, and decisiveness (numbering on the slide not legible from text). **Part: Applying the Copyselling System** 5. **Assemble Your First Draft.** Building copy beat by beat from the matrix. 6. **Improve VOC with Formulas.** Turning raw customer language into copy with formulas; in the interview she names problem-agitation-solution and desire-obstacle-solution and a ~60-word email target. 7. **Agitating & Arousing.** (Title as listed: "Agitating Arousing".) Presumably intensifying problem and desire; content not confirmed. 8. **Oh and Make It Sweaty.** Content not confirmed. 9. **The Seven Sweeps.** Her seven-pass editing and finalisation process ("for polished, try-hard copy", per the book site). 10. **Validation.** Checking copy before it ships ("a validation framework so you ship with confidence, not hope"). 11. **Optimizing Copy for Performance.** Testing and improving live copy. 12. **Copyselling Is a Team Sport.** Working with marketers and salespeople; team workflows; a shared matrix spreadsheet the team writes from. 13. **Identifying Constraints.** Finding the bottleneck in growth (or in one channel, such as email) before touching copy. 14. **Listening.** VOC research: the site promises "three proven methods"; the interview names customer interviews (about seven, your best customers only) and the thank-you-page survey question "What was going on in your life that brought you to [action] today?" 15. **Filling In and Using the Message Matrix.** Mapping VOC into the matrix, with AI used to sort data from calls and online sources ("don't make stuff up and don't … summarize"). 16. **Designing the Solution.** A one-page, hand-written solution design naming the constraint and where copy does and does not fit the fix. The last four chapters describe the system's first steps (constraint, listening, matrix, solution design), so they may be a separate "doing the research" section that Google's list does not label; I could not confirm the grouping. **Resources; Notes; Index.** The site mentions templates (solution design, matrix spreadsheets). ### Key ideas - **Copyselling, not copywriting**: judge copy by the decision it produces, not how it sounds. - **Constraint first**: copy is only one possible fix; find the bottleneck and write a solution design. - **VOC over brainstorming**: "All we're doing with research is trying to learn how to clone our best customers." Use their raw language even if marketing finds it unsexy. - **Sequence matters**: walk prospects through problem, category and only then product. Don't open with the value proposition. - **Blame the category, not the buyer**: show why existing options fail and why that isn't the prospect's fault. - **AI as research clerk**: let it fill the matrix with VOC; humans write the copy. - **Edit and test**: Seven Sweeps, validation, optimisation. ## 6. Fact-check | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Wiebe is "the inventor of conversion copywriting" / coined the term | **Unverified** | Asserted by her publisher and [Copyhackers](https://copyhackers.com/2022/06/what-is-conversion-copywriting/); I found no independent source dating the term's first use | | The stages of awareness (unaware → most aware) | **Supported** (as an attribution) | The five stages come from Eugene Schwartz, *Breakthrough Advertising* (1966); Wiebe presents them as "old school ideas" (interview), and the Video Summaries note records her citing Schwartz | | The system draws on the theory of constraints, Jobs to Be Done, Straight Line selling, hero's journey | **Supported** (as a list of influences) | Named on her slide deck; these are established frameworks (Goldratt, *The Goal*, 1984; Christensen/Moesta JTBD; Jordan Belfort's Straight Line) | | GitPrime "337% YoY sales pipeline growth", acquired for $170M | **Partly supported** | Acquisition for $170M is confirmed ([TechCrunch, 1 May 2019](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/01/pluralsight-will-acquire-gitprime-for-170m/)); the 337% figure is self-reported and unverified | | Follow Up Boss "32% YoY revenue growth", acquired by Zillow | **Partly supported** | Zillow acquisition confirmed ([Zillow Group, Dec 2023](https://investors.zillowgroup.com/news-and-events/news/news-details/2023/Zillow-Group-to-acquire-Follow-Up-Boss-an-industry-leader-in-customer-relationship-management/default.aspx); $400M cash plus up to $100M earnout); 32% unverified | | Wistia emails "350% increase in paid conversions"; Resident "$250M revenue in year one" | **Unverified** | Self-reported on [copysellingbook.com/book](https://copysellingbook.com/book); no independent source found | | "#1 in Advertising on Amazon" | **Unverified** | Her LinkedIn headline; no date or snapshot | | Trained "more than 5,000" / "over 70,000" people | **Unverified; inconsistent** | Publisher bio vs her podcast/LinkedIn; probably different measures (paid Copy School students vs all trainees) | | "Two full chapters" on the Message Matrix | **Supported** | Contents list shows "The Message Matrix" and "The 36 Beats", plus a later "Filling In and Using the Message Matrix" | | The thank-you-page survey question works best | **Unverified** | Her own claim from a Conversion Rate Experts project (interview); no published test | | Conversion Rate Experts was "the largest and most trusted" CRO agency | **Unverified** | Self-reported | | The video's framing ("the book on finding a story worth telling") | **Disputed (framing)** | The book is a copy and sales system; storytelling is one influence, not the subject (publisher description) | ## 7. Citations and references **Works the book builds on** (named on the book site or her deck; whether the Notes cite them is unverified): - Eugene M. Schwartz, *Breakthrough Advertising* (1966): [Open Library search](https://openlibrary.org/search?q=breakthrough+advertising+schwartz). - Eliyahu M. Goldratt, *The Goal* (1984): [Open Library search](https://openlibrary.org/search?q=the+goal+goldratt). - David Ogilvy, *Ogilvy on Advertising*; Claude Hopkins, *Scientific Advertising* (1923; public domain in the US, [Project Gutenberg search](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=scientific+advertising)); Luke Sullivan, *Hey Whipple, Squeeze This*; Michael Masterson & John Forde, *Great Leads* (compared on [copysellingbook.com/book](https://copysellingbook.com/book)). - Marcus Sheridan, *They Ask, You Answer* (recommended in the Duct Tape interview). **Links used in this note** - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Copyselling-System/Joanna-Wiebe/9781637748886 - https://benbellabooks.com/shop/the-copyselling-system/ - https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Copyselling_System.html?id=uZuQEQAAQBAJ - https://copysellingbook.com/ ; https://copysellingbook.com/book - https://copyhackers.com/pre-order-joanna-wiebe-book/ - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637748884 ; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FXBKCHFS ; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1STD6B2 - https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Copyselling-System-Audiobook/B0H1T45XQV ; https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Copyselling-System-Audiobook/B0H1T8DP17 - https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/855984 - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-copyselling-system-joanna-wiebe/1149602843 - https://lapl.overdrive.com/media/12451043 - https://ducttapemarketing.com/better-copy-starts-with-listening-to-your-customers/ - https://www.whatdidtheyread.com/books/the-copyselling-system-ce1e1418/ - https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/what-if-marketers-could-build-a-customer-like-engineers-build-products-with-joanna-wiebe/284054691 - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jwiebe_help-your-prospects-interpret-their-world-activity-7482935719825448961-DGlr - https://linkedin.com/in/jwiebe - https://copyhackers.com/about-joanna-jo-wiebe/ ; https://copyhackers.com/about-joanna-wiebe-copywriter/ ; https://copyhackers.com/about-us/ ; https://copyhackers.com/2022/06/what-is-conversion-copywriting/ - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joanna-wiebe-copywriting-marketing/id6805704598 - https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/01/pluralsight-will-acquire-gitprime-for-170m/ - https://investors.zillowgroup.com/news-and-events/news/news-details/2023/Zillow-Group-to-acquire-Follow-Up-Boss-an-industry-leader-in-customer-relationship-management/default.aspx - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCnxnaVg0bY