For various reasons I’ve been putting off writing this post. Actually, on reflection, I’m not really sure exactly what I’ve been waiting for, but today feels like the day to put it out there (it’s my ninth wedding anniversary. I wonder if that’s got anything to do with it).

I’ve written a novel called Instinct. It’s a technothriller in the style of Michael Crichton and it’s scheduled to be published next July by Penguin (you can Google my name and the book’s title for bits of background info). It’s also been sold to Germany for 2011 and Russia are also due to publish it.

There are two reasons for me to blog about it:

1. I’m looking for any help/suggestions/tips on the best way to spread the word and market the darn thing over the next eight months. I have a bunch of leads and offers of assistance so far but I believe that too much advice is far better than not enough. If you fancy doing something with a really lovely client (me) and little-to-no money, email me at bwmkay@gmail.com and I’ll try to make sense of any suggestions.

2. I’m aware that there are more than a few people out there with their own novels in the pipeline. If you are one of those people and would like me to relate my experiences to you, again feel free to get in touch. I’m not suggesting for a minute that I know how to get your book published, but I’ve managed to progress mine to a degree, so if you’d like to know how that happened, drop me a line.

Over the coming months I may blog a little more in the direction of books and publishing, especially about the process of getting me/the book ‘out there’ (that’s the main reason I’ve just joined Twitter).

Who knows, it might even be more interesting than guffing on about advertising.

It’s all very well going on about how wonderful respect is, but how does one attain this prized and elusive reaction?

Well, there are the simple, universal things: age, attractiveness to the opposite sex, being able to make a beer bong out of a length of hose and an ordinary household funnel etc.

But the most effective way is also the hardest: achieve.

If I swing this post back to creative advertising, I think that respect goes to the people who have made better ads than you have. However, there are a few conditions to this: first, the more recent your good ad, the more respect you get; second, the more good ads you’ve done, the more respect you get, and third, if you can’t do good ads, do award winning ads.

In fact, award winning ads can trump good ads because they allow you to have a shelf of shiny prizes, something which cows even the more disrespectful whippersnapper. There’s also the thorny issue of ads not actually being allowed to be referred to as ‘good’ until they’ve won an award or two. Many people won’t declare an ad to be worthy of praise until it has already received the praise of others. Shame.

The strange thing about that is that there are many other aspects of a CD’s skill set that have nothing to do with the creativity of ads: massaging egos, making clients feel safe, managing their budgets, deciding who needs training, worrying about people in their department who are drinking too much etc. I’m not saying that all CDs do these things, just that the job is not solely concerned with the judgement of unmade ads and the improvement of their execution.

So you respect your CD for the Pencils he or she won a while back, but you might consider a nice one to be a pushover, and one who makes you redo an ad that isn’t good enough to be an ‘arsehole’, ie: their behaviour might reduce your respect for them.

A further issue is the neophile tendency of the industry. Advertising loves nothing more than something new. That means that the older CDs might look like they are chasing things that are inappropriately groovy. Can your boss say Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk without looking like a twat? And does that matter?

I suppose the issue of ‘respect’ is trickier than I thought (and lets not even get started on whether creatives respect the opinions of the other people in the agency).

But one thing’s certain: the more respected the CD, the better the talent he can attract; the better the talent that he can attract, the better the work; the better the work, the better the agency; the better the agency, the more respected the CD.

Etc…etc…etc…

First I find Flake are advertising in DPSs in the weekend Guardian Magazine:

Then I hear the interesting rumour that the new Flake TV ad is going to be written by Walter Campbell and directed by Jonathan Glazer.

Intriguing to say the least, but I can’t help wondering why there’s all this fuss over Flake?

Then I remember: it is the crumbliest, flakiest milk chocolate in the world and deserves to be treated with the kind of respect such an accolade demands.

Respect is a funny old thing.

The FA think you can just tell people to respect other people and that’ll be that. What they mean is ‘don’t swear at the ref’, but that’s just too wordy, so they decided to employ a single word to make sure the kids could cope.

‘With respect’ is, ironically, the phrase that is used by someone who is just about to be really, really disrespectful: “With respect, Sandra, I think manning a call centre telephone might be beyond you.”

But respect is also one of those things that can make you very happy. I find that working for someone you respect makes the work feel one tenth as annoying as working for someone you don’t.

When people you respect ask you to do something, doing that thing doesn’t feel like as much of an imposition. In fact it can feel downright pleasant to do it.

And respecting someone’s opinion leaves you less concerned about whether or not that opinion is right or not. It gives you the confidence to follow a path in the belief that it’s right.

And that can make a big difference to your overall satisfaction.

Work for people you respect. It makes the day go by.

I don’t even know if this is the right link for me.

If you want to check my tweets out, it’ll be like this blog, only worse.

This is an amazing project that’s been four years in the making: one picture that features all of the 490 first-team players who graced the grass at Highbury (four are missing).

Anyway, rather than continue regurgitating the entirety of someone else’s post, I’ll just direct you here.

Oh, and Bring On The Trumpets won last week’s poll, so I’m just off to shoot myself in the face.

You might notice that the new poll has some inverted commas that are there for all the wrong reasons. I hope they’ll be featured on this website.

(Thanks, D.)

Of course, it could backfire as they land on you and you try to kill them, saying ‘Fuck off Power of Dreams’, or ‘Get the fuck off me BMW Joy’.

Let’s see what happens next.

I bet they’ll drug us to make our eyesight really good then do something similar to protons, neutrons and electrons, turning the entire planet into a series of tiny commercial opportunities that we’ll just love.

Very well shot by Ringan Ledwidge. Hats off to all involved (although I’d like to have seen the horse talking a bit more clearly. That is a very small quibble).

Let’s all shed a ginormous tear for the passing of one of advertising’s greatest ever agencies: Cliff Freeman and Partners.

You can read the article for the bumph behind the demise, but I’d just like to say that for anyone working in creative advertising for the last 22 years, particularly from the mid-nineties to the early 00s, this place was the gold standard. They basically invented the ad style which boiled down to 25 seconds of hilarious followed by a white-on-black punchline, that was imitated but never bettered.

Run VT: