cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why do I have to title these? Monday Today I am hoping to hear something back about this possible consulting gig. It could happen. I'm getting really worried about too long a gap between now and my next big hunk of cash. There is no telling when the second half of my book advance is going to materialize and I need to stop counting on it. My sister is moving back from NYC in the next few weeks. My brother just informed his employer that he is looking for a new job. All 3 of us quit our long-standing jobs within a few weeks of each other. Weird. In case of emergency I would like to get another piece of land with no loan attached. Then build something habitable on it. It could just be a 300 sq. ft. cottage with a 150 sq ft. sleeping loft for the kids. No room for 'stuff' but a place where we could live in case everything goes to hell for us financially and we lose our current house. I could build such a thing for around $10k. Drilling a well would be expensive but I could always put in a cistern system instead. Holly shit dude, I've been getting email and phone calls from strangers all day. Apparently I was written up in big articles in at least 4 mid-sized regional newspapers today. Cool. For the record, I'm really fucking good at PR and I hardly even try. If people would hire me to do PR then I would totally kick ass at it. A consultant we work with sometimes at my (outgoing) company called me up to congratulate me on being in the paper so I took advantage of the call to ask her stuff about my consulting business that I'm launching. She says I should be charging at least $5,000 a day, which I find rather stunning. It will be nice if that turns out to be true. I may or may not have the balls to actually walk into a room and request that kind of money. _________________________ Tuesday I am listening to The Bird and the Bee today. 'Diamond Dave.' I've lost track of how many papers carried stories about me in the last few days. The weird thing is that when I search Google news only 2 of them come up. I'm a teensy bit worried about Paul's view of all of this. He's got people congratulating him left and right for all of the press (which features him as prominently as me, rightly so) and I'm starting to detect a trace of annoyance or resentment towards my involvement. He brings most of the technical know-how and is providing the location and tools. However, the point that may be getting lost amidst the toasting is that none of this media coverage was an accident. I plotted out all of it from day one. Using a budget of exactly zero, I plotted a media strategy that put our product/service in front of several million pairs of eyes. I got us pages and pages of newsprint and full color photos in Sunday editions that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy as ad space. I got us streaming video and photo galleries on news sites. I got us a 2 minute video story on a local news station that reaches several hundred thousand households every night. I turned Paul's name (ok, mine too) into something recognized by thousands of people who have an interest in this sort of thing. So I would say that I have been pulling my weight with room to spare. Not that I want to suggest he's being an ass or anything. Which he isn't. I'm just saying that I detect the wrong kind of attitude. Listening to 'M' by The Cure now. I wrote a fucking excellent account of Saturday's expedition and posted it on my real-name blog this morning. I'm very pleased with it. I used my literary tone and tried to make it sparse, naked and vivid. Its either very good or terrible. One doesn't find a lot of middle ground when attempting this sort of thing. Like trying to do a back flip off the diving board. Its either very impressive or you fall short and smack your head against the board and flop sideways into the water as the lifeguard dives in to drag your sorry ass out of the pool. I would like to use that style for the new book but I'm not sure how well that can mesh with the need for clear writing about the ecology and butchering techniques so forth. 5:24 p.m. - 2010-07-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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