Monday, April 21, 2014

A free plug


G'Day Gavin!

It's called starting off on the wrong foot. Send an email to a complete stranger you're hoping to ask a favour of… and get his name wrong for starters. I don't really mind: Gavin is a fine name and I am sure there are many gardening Gavins out there. It's just that I'm a gardening Jamie, but as I said, I don't mind. 

And that's what happened this morning. I received a very cheery email headed "G'Day Gavin!". It was from someone hoping to do a very modest little deal in the hope of getting some free publicity for his new Australian seed selling website.

The is familiar stuff for me. One of the little jobs I have to do as a garden blogger is deal with lots of emails from business promoters. As I've been around for a while and my blog has logged up a fair few hits (mostly due to its sheer longevity, rather than its popularity) people promoting their business send me emails offering all sorts of deals, in the hope of a bit of publicity. It's not enough to make me rich, but I would have a garden shed full of crap I don't want if I accepted every offer.

Very few of these promo emails are irksome, and I don't mind people giving it a try. In fact I can sympathise. One of the biggest problems in the business world is simply getting noticed, standing out from the pack in some way. 

So I always politely reply to most emails, saying "Sorry, I'm strictly an amateur blogger and so I accept no freebies or contra in exchange for blog postings." I reply in this way every week, sometimes a couple of times a week. I always wish them the best of luck.

A few get back to me, revealingly saying "thanks for bothering to reply". It must be a hard slog for them, sending out hundreds of emails, getting hardly any replies. So when they do get a "no" from me, it prompts some of them to reply because at least someone read their email.

The only promo emails that I don't reply to are those suggesting they generously do a "guest posting", based on their relevance to my gardening blog…. on highly relevant topics like cleaning blinds, home heating, insurance for pets… etc. I don't reply to the 'guest posters'. In this gardening blog, any guest posts would just be spam with a parsley garnish.

So while I am a dismal party pooper to the business world's promotional dreams, I have decided to give the authors of my "G'Day Gavin!" email a free plug because I like their website, the company is a new Australian company, they're home-grown, they're young, they're organic, and they actually have gardening products to sell.




I wouldn't have a clue whether they're good, bad, wonderful or indifferent. You decide for yourself. But they sell seeds of all sorts of plants, both edible and ornamental – quite an interesting mix, which mostly made me decide to give them a free plug. So you can check out for yourself the good folk at Fair Dinkum Seeds here:

www.fairdinkumseeds.com

And here's a little magazine story about them, a young couple called Leigh and Manami.

http://issuu.com/lily_lifeandstyleod/docs/lilyissue6/33?e=7498468/6640236

Good luck to you both, Leigh and Manami, I hope your business flourishes as well as your garden seems to be doing.

8 comments:

Diana Studer said...

does look interesting. I wish them success!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jamie,

I stumbled onto your blog this morning while looking for info about Murraya propagation. Love your pictures and write up. Its interesting how you've placed the buddha under your curry tree. Both makes me think of India.

Anonymous said...

Oops! I mean 'make'.

Jamie said...

Hello Anonymous!

I get so much spam from someone else called "Anonymous" that you almost ended up in my electronic "round file" (ie, the trash can) just before I noticed the way you wrote your lovely little note. You're real! Thanks for your kind comment. I love all the real comments from real people, even the anonymous ones.

Unknown said...

Hi Jamie! Are you up for another free plug? I've designed a set of Sculptural Steel Garden Tools, which are now available through an Indiegogo crowd sourcing campaign. Please check them out: http://igg.me/at/akaKate/x/6915331

Unknown said...

By the way, I'm local (live in Newtown). I'd be happy to show you the prototypes in person.

Jamie said...

Hi Katherine
Can you send a short email to me at

gardenamateur@gmail.com

As I think your design ideas are interesting and worth a free plug. I don't want any "free samples" (as they say in the Free Plug industry) but I would like to use a photo or two from your Indiegogo website of your tools, and it'd be nice to get your permission!

Unknown said...

I want the photos and the link to be circulated as broadly as possible!