July 2017

Monthly Archive

Giving Stuff Away

13 Jul 2017 | : blog

Giving Stuff Away

A photographer, who is very good at it, posted this comment on a forum under the title “Giving Stuff Away”, a few days ago:

“Ahead of a book I will have to sell, and a web page I have to finish to sell images, I have been giving away images, about 1 every two weeks. To those who sign up for the email list. I just posted this one. See if I get any responses. I am up to 940 on email list.”

My first reply:

I offered a booklet (hardcover) for comments recently.
Got 3 comments only.
All three people have bought from me so the booklet can be like a bonus to them for their business.
But giving away to get, I don’t believe it works.
In my regular work, someone calls, I go, do the work, get paid.
I gave nothing to them for free to get the business. Why should it be any different with digital products?

A street vendor with a pickup full of oranges gave me a slice to taste, a free sample. The next time I saw him, he gave me a whole orange free. Sure I’ll remember him next time he’s in town.
That’s giving a free sample, not the whole pickup load.

My intellectual work is just as valuable of a product as are oranges.
This contest I mentioned in my first reply has ended and the booklets are on their way to the people who commented.
I’m not giving them the books. I am buying their comments.
Captain Molan didn’t give that image away, he bought email addresses with it.

He replied to me:
“I agree. It’s a form of advertising. It’s a fair trade for me. People sharing this off creates the buzz that helps the word spread.
My goal is to have book sales and speaking gigs through the book. The images are an important part of all three. I learned a while ago just selling photos would be a struggle.”

Trading value for value is not giving, each party profits.

One respondent said her ebook was given away free online and now “I had to send an actual act of Congress to get it down, but it’s still all over the net as a free eBook.”

Free.
Is anything really free.
I’m a really conservative guy, but when it comes to getting a job done right,  I don’t skimp on the quality of products used even if it costs more.

Free shipping.
Buy one get the second one free.
You are paying for that and it is all figured into the cost.
And the free content online is pages and pages of repitious talk about how good the product is if you’ll only buy it.

Incentives or lost leaders but not a gievaway.

Just giving is what charities are. I don’t ever intend on receiving in return for my gifts.

So trading, buying, advertising with my “free” whatever is not really giving.
Let’s stop saying it is

Today is July 4th 2017 celebrating July 4th 1776

04 Jul 2017 | : blog

Today is July 4th 2017 celebrating July 4th 1776
241 years ago The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America.
John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence.

John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The Declaration was ultimately a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The next day, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.”
But Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the Declaration of Independence was approved.

Of the 56 signatories, 31 were relatives of mine.
From 2nd cousin 9 times removed Ben Franklin to Carter Braxton 14th once removed.
John Adams 3rd cousin 8 times removed.
Thomas Jefferson was an 8th cousin 7 times removed.
That’s some interesting informoation.

Why is this document important?
Abraham Lincoln said of it:
“”Let us revere the Declaration of Independence.” “Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it.”
“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. …… It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”
He called our country based on these principles “the last best hope of earth.”

Alan Keyes started an organization called the Declaration Fountain to renew those principles.
“The Declaration Foundation has as its aim the restoration of that which is the foundation of the common ground which binds us all, whatever our backgrounds as Americans.”
“I think if we don’t soon recover the understanding they had at the beginning, then we shall continue down the road of a debased and dejected freedom that will in the end become such a burden to us, such a violation of our dignity, that we shall gladly give it up.”
“We want to restore to this country that understanding of law which is the ground for our claim of freedom. And in education, and in law, and in public policy, we want to begin to inspire people once again to have the boldness of their declaration convictions.”
(http://www.faithandfreedomfoundation.com/articles/keyes-principles-reborn.php)

So today instead of just wasting huge amounts of money on fireworks, perhaps it would be well to consider the document and the principles embodied in it.

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