X-Message-Number: 13806
From: 
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 08:00:47 EDT
Subject: The Art of Free Publicity (David Pizer tie-in)

The following are a list of a few public relations personal accomplishments 
non-related to cryonics that I've made to raise a point about publicity.   
All were done on a zero budget and mostly within the past few months.

1.   A documenatry TV film crew from Europe is coming out to my house in a 
few weeks if all goes well to film a "road trip" documentary to air on 
national TV in that country about a rock band's visit to the US.   Met with 
the producers last night at their expense.   They needed me because they 
needed someone to coordinate some scenes they were shooting, and I was a good 
connection.  - - It now looks like I'm going to be in it as well as several 
individuals who's careers I've been trying to help to resurrect.

2.  I helped to discover the whereabouts of a legendary Jazz organist who's 
somewhat of a missing link in the early pre-Jimmy Smith history of the Jazz 
organ.  At the click of an e-mail, within two weeks a radio station in San 
Jose ran an hour long retrospective of his career and played his entire 
career.    He has more than paid me back by "discovering" me in return and 
has personal taken me to places where I can get the local exposure I need to 
be taken serious as a legitimate player.
As a result, my personal visibility has been increased.

3.  I have also been invovled in trying to help resurrect the career of Big 
John Patton, who is also my musical mentor.   Although I am not a 
professional publicist and booking agent I have helped him coordinate 
numerous gigs, and he in turn has also taken the steps that have allowed me 
to start building a reputation that have allowed me to make important 
connections in the development of my career and the reputation as a 
legitimate player.   I now have access to musicians who will play for me for 
free practically as "favors" who a year ago would probably have never 
returned my call.    - -  straight ahead/Jazz organ CDs often don't sell a 
lot of copies, but in order to sell ANY you have to get them past the 
programming director.   Surrounding yourself with legitimate players is key 
to it.  

4.  I wrote and self published a book on Jazz improv.   It has generated an 
average of 3-7 sales a week since its inception.   While an average of $50.00 
a week may not sound like the road to riches, the fact is I have spent spend 
an average of $1.00 a copy in advertising and have virtually no overhead.   
You have to admit, that's still nice pocket money towards a night on the town 
without stretching the budget.

5. I appeared as part of an article in a local newspaper about the center 
where I was teaching English last year, and have appeared in similar articles 
related to my teaching work.    Of course, this has not generated millions of 
job offers from better funded agencies, however, had I not left the field, it 
definitely would not have looked bad in my resume.

6.  In my spare time I write "music reviews" for Amazon.com.    This may not 
be a major life accomplishment, but it takes all of 2 minutes to write them, 
and has generated a bit of fan mail and people who claim to have bought many 
CDs I reccomended.  Between the fans of my book and my music reviews, it'll 
probably sell enough copies to go see a movie and buy popcorn,  but the 
conenction to a radio DJ, a musician with the potential of making a come back 
and a TV production company in Europe, plus a VERY nice looking address and 
personal database that is growing are definitely assets, not liabilities.   
(Try writing reviews for Sci Fi novels with references for freezing or even 
films like Demolition Man mentioning other books about cryonics, or saying, 
"This book interested me because I myself am interested in cryonics.  If you 
like this book, I strongly suggest these other books...")

Here's the point... OK, I'm NOT Michael Jackson or Regis Philbin.   But all 
of this came about virtually free and took up no time and if it was done in 
an organized manner.    PR Firms cost money, and advertising campaigns can be 
bank breakers, but there are other ways to gain publicity.  - - I guarentee 
you, the media and general public probably aren't very interested in major 
scientific breakthroughs related for cryonics., but when some whacko freezes 
Mom in the freezer in their London flat, all the news wires pick it up.       
Fine...   great time to rally the troops and write editorials (three seconds 
of labor, click of an e-mail) about why it won't work, real cryonics and why 
you consider yourself a cryonicist as well as to bait local TV stations into 
doing human interest stories.     Second, human interest is where its at.   
If you're a fireman, a lawyer, a hot dog salesman or a porn actor, be good 
and reputable at what you do and become the face of cryonics...   I'm willing 
to bet there are so many writers who read this list, and if CI or ALCOR or an 
independent group were to get together, so many human interest stories could 
be picked up and wind up in larger publications.   So why not establish an 
organized (but zero overhead) consortium of cryonicists/people interested in 
cryonics by areas of talent and expertise and discuss ways of generating 
publicity - - the whole idea is "What's good for a cryonicist is good for 
cryonics,"  - - In fact, I am personally willing to donate the following to 
anyone that asks it.     1)  writing skills,  2)  broadcast quality recording 
equipment (Korg D-16) free minus expenses.   (There are several companies 
that pick up independently produced audio documentaries for broadcast on NPR 
incidently.)   3)  musical skills.    Wasn't something like this happening a 
few years back ?     Why isn't it happening now ?  What's happening anyway ?  
 By the time we can prove cryonics is sure shot, will we really need it ?    
I mean, even then won't people start to argue, "Oh, well sure you can 
unfreeze them, but prove to me you can bring them back to life !"    - - I 
think proof and debate is a terrible tool for selling things. Image and 
exposure are everything.    I had a friend in Japan who worked for an AV firm 
and she told me that when she does advertising campaigns involving the 
distribution of flyers/mailings in certain locations, she can actually 
predict the results in advance with surprizing accuracy based on cost vs. 
exposure.   Apparently there's a formula related to the cost of the product 
and how many people you have to reach per dollar ! ! ! 

Sorry for the long post, but I hope I've raised some legitimate points

Ed

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