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- 3-FEB-2026 | Excerpt from “The Black Obelisk” by Erich Maria Remarque
3-FEB-2026 | Excerpt from “The Black Obelisk” by Erich Maria Remarque


The Vault from Copywork365

The swipe file is dead.
Literally, and maybe figuratively as well.
When I first started working on this project, I gave it the working title, Toolbox. The simple tagline was: the swipe file on roids.
But the more I worked on it, the more it became clear that this wasn’t just a box of tools. Calling it a swipe file wasn’t accurate, either. Roided up, or otherwise.
Because at its core, the swipe file is merely a collection of pictures or text. A pile, in other words.
This thing behaves more like a navigable map.
And no matter how much stuff you hoard into a swipe file, its contents are inert.
This, on the other hand, grows deeper over time. Its contents are living.
So, henceforth, this will be known as…

(This is just a placeholder, made with the help of AI.
So hit me up if you can make this more human & prettier!)
The Vault is an atomic copywriting database. As far as I know it’s the first of its kind, so that’s what I’m calling it.
It’s a database of world-class excerpts just like the ones we cover right here on the daily. Spanning ad copy, webpage copy, and literature.
Each excerpt is x-rayed and dissected to reveal what makes everything tick, how it works — on the most granular level. (Hence, atomic.)
It covers all the tools, techniques, and psychology we touch on here, but in their full depth. Making it easy to master these “devices” and then apply them to your own persuasive writing. You can even filter by author or brand to steal the secret sauce from your very favorite writers, copywriters, and brands.
Same as before, I’ve still got a forever deal for you.
If you join the waitlist below, you get exclusive lifetime access for an ultra-low flat fee when The Vault launches. (It’s looking like Q1 or Q2 of 2026.)
After all, a sweetheart deal is the least I can do to thank you for your support.
And as I’ve mentioned before, yes, I really do mean lifetime.
Even if the internet ceases to exist. I’ll toil day and night to make sure you receive a physical copy. With however many thousands of excerpts this accumulates over its lifetime.
Pinky promise.

Excerpt from “The Black Obelisk” by Erich Maria Remarque
He is a corpulent little man with a bristling mustache and dusty trousers, secured at the bottom with bicycle clips. His eyes sweep Georg and me with mild contempt. To him we are office hacks who loaf all day, while he is the man of action in charge of foreign affairs. He is indefatigable. Every day in the gray of dawn he goes to the railroad station and then by bicycle to the remotest villages: wherever our agents, the gravediggers and teachers, have reported a corpse. He is by no means inept. His corpulence inspires confidence; therefore he maintains it by diligent beer drinking early and late. 🏁

World-building and character exposition from one of the greats.
Remarque doesn’t spell out that the little man dislikes Georg and the narrator. Instead he describes what the character does: “His eyes sweep Georg and me with mild contempt.” Showing instead of telling.
Then we see the opposite: telling, then illustrating for embellishment and imagination. “He is indefatigable” is immediately followed with how he is that way, how the man’s behavior supports that label.
