One of the reasons I’ve been quiet recently is that I’m starting another business to run alongside this one. The new game? Publishing. Only on a small scale to begin with (I’m going to be classed as a micropublisher), but it’s exciting stuff nonetheless. I’ve spent quite a few weeks tying up the arrangements with my print and fulfillment house (print-on-demand specialists Lightning Source) to ensure that everything I publish will be automatically available through major wholesalers, Waterstones, Amazon and all the rest.
More info on the first title coming shortly, just as soon as I’ve booked the ISBNs. The business is going to be called Carrier Books - www.carrierbooks.com - and I should have a website up soon. Watch this space!
Happy New Year one and all. I realise it’s a couple of months since I wrote anything remotely lengthy and interesting on here, but despite what the papers keep telling me about the end of the world, I seem to have rather a lot of work coming in. I’ve also been writing my final MA dissertation, which has led to a few sleepless nights thinking about footnotes.
One area of business where I’m seeing a lot of activity is training: I’ve had three new clients come to me, all recently made redundant, wanting to learn more about copywriting, plain English and writing for PR. I’m going to be revamping my training pages to include more detailed information on PR training, and also a few bits and pieces of media training that I may offer.
Morning all - just a quick one to apologise for the lack of posts, but things have been absolutely flat out. Right now I’m busy doing a fair bit of work for Ray Field over at Tin Soldier as well as preparing Christmas newsletters for a number of clients.
If I don’t get to blog again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a good one!
Just got back from Manchester, where I dropped in at the Business North West press office at G-MEX (or whatever they call it these days) to do an interview with Max Clifford.
Max was great, and responded to my questions - which were all about how to handle small business PR on zero budget - with good, clear, practical advice. I’m writing up the interview over the next day or two, and when I’ve got a bit more time I’ll write a post here with a few bits and pieces about Max and his approach.
The rest of the show was good, but I spent quite a bit a bit of time getting collared by boring people in shiny suits and stick-on smiles, trying to flog me stuff. I did get a chance to catch up with living legend Ben Austin of iMediaPeople, though, which made up for the hucksters.
Walking back to Piccadilly station I was struck by the number of homeless men and women, selling the Big Issue, begging or otherwise dishevelled and distressed. It was hard not to make a comparison between these people and the shiny, happy folks inside the business show. Many of the latter were great, innovate, enterprising people. Some of them were bullshit merchants. But how many people in that gigantic exhibition hall have any contact with this world of the poor and dispossessed, just a hundred yards away?
When businesses get involved in charity, they tend, naturally enough, to look for causes that have a certain PR value: children, the environment, hospices and so on. Max made the point that cancer charities do well out of business PR events. You can see why. Most people have kids, most people have had or know someone who has had cancer. Not many of us have had much experience of being homeless, and - it seems - not many of us have too much sympathy with the old Chinese woman, sat on a bench outside Greggs, singing her heart out, or the smelly old bloke shuffling down Whitworth Street.
Anyway, back to Manc next week. Oh, I should say that I also managed briefly to catch up with my good friends and former students Matt Nixon (who needs to update his blog) and Sarah B, who needs to make sure she’s not getting ripped off on songwriting credits. Thanks for the drinks, chaps.
I’ve been slacking off work to spend some time on my MA dissertation today. This involves trawling through Early English Books Online, one of the most phenomenal resources you’ll ever come across. The guys at Chadwyck have spent something like a billion person-hours scanning and uploading original books dating from from the middle of the fifteenth century to the end of the nineteenth.
The result is an incredible repository of stuff. Want to read the ‘good’ quartos of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, the ones that Shakespeare probably saw, read and checked himself? EEBO has them. The pirate ‘bad’ quartos? It’s got those too. First edition of Paradise Lost? Check. All the Thomason Tracts? Yes indeedy.
There are holes in the collection, the attributions are sometimes (cough) wrong and the search function is idiosyncratic, but otherwise it’s brill. If you’re a lit or history geek, you can usually get access through your local library. Students should be able to get in via Athens or from a university IP address - it’s definitely worth it.
Apologies for the lack of updates - I’ve been working hard on Business Matters stuff for the past few weeks. Not long ago I interviewed Michelle Mone (Ultimo Lingerie) and Dennis Turner (Chief Economist of HSBC). Coming up, I’ve got legendary PR man Max Clifford pencilled in for a chat.
Journalism aside, things are fairly busy on the copywriting and consultancy front, too: I’m in the middle of a lot of work for sister companies Dutch by Design and Design My World and I’m heavily involved in the pre-launch for Line Hugga, a great new product for the haulage industry.
All that, and I’ve got two new books (of which more soon) and my MA dissertation on the go. If this is a recession, I need a holiday…
Just sent this out on Response Source, in case you’ve missed it:
PUBLICATION: Business matters (Request for information for an article)
JOURNALIST: Bill Hilton (staff)
DEADLINE: 27-September-2008 13:00
QUERY: You Speak-a da Lingo?
Business Matters Magazine, the UK’s leading publication for small and medium enterprises, is seeking to run a feature on the importance of language skills for contemporary business owners and entrepreneurs.
We would like to hear from individuals, institutions and companies with specialist knowledge of foreign languages for business, and a strong track record in the field.
We want to angle the story towards readers who wish to do business in emerging markets. As such, we are particularly interested in hearing from business-oriented specialists in the languages of eastern Europe, Russia, China or the Pacific Rim, or from business people who have boosted their competitive edge by learning a language from one of these regions.
If you think you can help - or can provide a bylined piece of around 800 words on this - please contact Bill Hilton, by email initially, at bhilton@clearsightmedia.co.uk
…or you can fill in the form on my contact page. Cheers!
I’m really only posting the video below because my last entry was a PR request and the next one will be, too; I want you all to think I’m a man of depth and subtlety rather than, say, a hack on the make.
Not that the footage is irrelevant flummery: oh no. I think it contains a golden nugget of truth that all copywriters can learn from.
It’s a rocky road to the top: business stories needed for monthly column
Business Matters Magazine, the market-leading publication for UK SMEs, is launching a monthly column dedicated to the banana skins that business people tread on as they follow the road to success.
Every month we want to feature two or three light-hearted tales of business woe that befell successful entrepreneurs in their early days. We’d like the items to be funny and inspirational real-life stories from high-achieving individuals who can look back at sticky situations and laugh.
If any of your clients fit the bill, drop us a line on bm.editorial@clearsightpm.co.uk for a chat!
Alternatively, just fill in my contact form. We’ve had a few good responses so far, but we’d like some more. Cheers!
Repetitive Strain Injury from typing is a complete bastard if you are self-employed in a role that demands that you write. I’ve learned to live with it, so, for the benefit of posterity and @amandita, here are some top tips:
Apparently posture is important, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to me because my problems are in my hands and wrists. If you get back or neck pain, though, read this.
Wrist rests actually seem to make things worse, possibly because they force me to stretch out the backs of my hands and put pressure on the undersides of my wrists.
Lots of problems can be solved by ditching a mouse and using a pen tablet. Wacom is the best brand. They are much more natural than mice, and don’t force your wrist into an unnatural position or put pressure on the back of your hands when you click. Plus you can use handwriting recognition software, which is fun and oddly therapeutic, but slower than typing.
Get a new keyboard. As keyboards age, some keys get sticky and need more pressure to depress, even though you don’t notice it. A really sinner is the <ENTER> key, which you usually go for with the (weak) fourth finger of your right hand. I always choose soft keyboards (laptops are best, but the new Apple standalone keyboards are excellent) and try to change them at least once a year.
If you’ve been on the lash the night before, rehydrate.
RSI tends to feel better after exercise, presumably because the blood gets moving through the effected parts once more. Get out on your bike.
Lots of people swear by microbreaks and stretching exercises, though they don’t seem to make much difference to me.
Use your hands in different ways. I play the piano, but you can also knead bread etc. Guitar makes it worse.
Think twice about speech recognition. I’ve yet to find software that really performs.
If I had to choose one single thing that had made the biggest difference, it would be the pen tablet - even though, bizarrely, strain from use of the mouse should only affect my right hand.
