The signing tour continued on Saturday, 30th of May, with a visit to Waterstone’s in my home town of Dunfermline, Scotland.
This event was a lot of fun as many of my friends and family turned up, including some friends I hadn’t seen in years! In addition to people I knew, I got the chance to talk to a lot of new faces about the book and my experiences since its release.
Waterstone’s did a great job promoting the event, having set up a table at the very front of the store. In other words, nobody could browse their extensive range of books without getting past me first! One staff member had even put their artistic skills to use, having drawn a really snazzy penguin on their promotional whiteboard to bring in passers-by and penguin-watchers!
No penguins were harmed during the event, but a small town in Fife will never be quite the same again.
It really was a fantastic event and I enjoyed catching up with old friends and sharing the book with new ones.
Missed the gig? The video below captures some of the highlights:
Silly Beggar made it’s first television appearance this evening on the Richard and Judy Show.
Last week, after the Daily Mirror article came out, I was contacted by the producers of the show asking if they could fly me down to London to be interviewed. Of course, I jumped at the chance.
The format of the show is such that it has a main studio where Richard and Judy interview the big name guests, and a second studio known as the ‘Star Bar’ where a guest comedian interviews the other guests. In tonight’s show, legendary comic Rowland Rivron interviews yours truly.
It was great fun to record the show and an experience I will remember for a long time. Richard and Judy even gave me some expensive toiletries by way of thanks for appearing on the show. I do love a freebie.
The good news is, a reader who follows me on Twitter had the technical know-how to put the interview up on YouTube, so I will provide the link below. Enjoy!
My first ever book signing took place on Saturday, in Borders Books, Fort Kinnaird, Edinburgh.
Borders had set up a display at the front of the store with loads of copies of the book. They had blown up one of the letters featured in the book to A3 size because, funnily enough, it was addressed to them! Yes, some time ago I had written to Borders, Fort Kinnaird, Edinburgh requesting freebies! So it seems appropriate that their store should be the first on my signing tour.
They had promoted the event well with posters advertising my appearance, and throughout the session, they put announcements out that I was in store signing copies of the book.
It was great to meet so many people interested in the book and the concept behind it. One person in particular amused me - no matter what I said, he simply repeated the words “yes, yes - silly mental crazy”. I’m not sure why. It’s possible they were the only English words he knew!
I received a lot of very positive feedback from customers who loved the idea of the book. Although most requested that the book was signed to them, many asked me to sign it to their friends, describing it as a perfect gift. Who am I to argue?! By the end of the session, my table was almost sold out and the staff invited me back to sign again around Christmas time. I will most definitely be there.
Posted by Spencey on Tuesday Jan 6, 2009 Under Book Details
This book takes the art of acquiring the freebie to a whole new level of absurdity. Rejoice as the Customer Services departments of multinational corporations are fed ridiculous stories designed to make them part with their sweet logo-bearing bounty.
Bask in the bizarre accounts of penguin attacks, weird experiments, heroic alter-egos and many more fishy tales, each designed to garner goodies for absolutely nothing. Whether he’s playing the system or just playing games, James Spence demonstrates his comic genius via his uniquely entertaining emails.
The respondents often surprise us too by entering into the spirit of the author’s wacky world. With colour photos of the author and his collection of toys, mugs, vouchers and of course - T-shirts .
James is a dreamer with far too much time on his hands. He lives with his wife Tiff and cat Angel in Dunfermline where he dreams, schemes and screams in delight when he receives yet another brand new T-shirt through the post. He is the creator of ‘Dr Sheep and the Aardvark‘, unquestionably one of Scotland’s most popular online comic strips, enjoyed by thousands of comic fans around the world. One of his poems was recently published by Google in their book ‘Search Me’ by Neil Taylor. They also sent him 2 T-shirts!
The signing tour continued on Saturday, 30th of May, with a visit to Waterstone’s in my home town of Dunfermline, Scotland.
This book takes the art of acquiring the freebie to a whole new level of absurdity. Rejoice as the Customer Services departments of multinational corporations are fed ridiculous stories designed to make them part with their sweet logo-bearing bounty.