Sunday, August 29, 2010

shameless promotion

I am deplorably behind on my blogging, but it is summer - in fact it is the end of summer - and who wants to hammer away on a laptop when you can water ski or tube or fish or picnic or snooze in the shade. So there is my excuse.

The Sleeping Giant Writers Festival this past weekend is yet another reason for my blogging delinquency. The festival stretched over the whole weekend, but being the tight-fisted, miserly, skin-flint that I am, I only attended one workshop. I chose Terry Fallis's Shameless Self-Promotion.

Terry podcasts a chapter of his new book The High Road each week, in spite of his publisher's reservations about giving away a book that they hope to sell in bundles next month. Whether his "offer free podcasts to promote sales" philosophy is based on science or wishful thinking, it's a radical idea, and radical ideas often appeal to me.

Later, in the car, I floated the concept of a Spontaneous Combustion podcast to my 15 year old son, who was firmly earplugged into Patrick McManus.

Me: "How would you like to listen to Spontaneous Combustion on your iPod?"

Phillip: "Oh boy." [is there such a thing as unenthusiastic sarcasm?]

Vanessa (my 12 year old daughter): "What is Spontaneous Combustion?"

Me: "You don't know?! . . . [cough, sputter] . . . um, it's the name of the column I write for Fire and EMS Quarterly . . . (!@?)"

Phillip: "It's called Spontaneous Combustion?"

I guess Shameless Promotion, like charity, begins in the home [side note: I bet Patrick McManus didn't give away any of his books by podcast].

Speaking of shameless promotion, here is the calendar cover shot for our new calendar, which also launches next month (don't worry Terry, we won't cut into your book sales).


We are planning an event to shamelessly promote our calendar and the volunteer fire service on Saturday, September 11 at the Stanley Hotel. We will also be shamelessly giving away prizes and dunking politicians. If you are anywhere near the neighbourhood, you won't want to miss this event.

2 comments:

  1. Pat McManus? Would these by any chance be the tapes Grandpa got from us a few weeks ago? :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Christina Harris loaned her fancy iTouch to Erinn, and Phillip comandeered it for his own teenagerly purposes. Patrick McManus was one of the millions of files contained on the iTouch.

    ReplyDelete

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