It is rather well-known I'm considered as some kind of French specialist as far as 007 business is concerned .
Bearing in mind that two years ago , the French PR bureau in charge of Sebastian Faulk's DEVIL MAY CARE promo had shamelessly « borrowed » huge chuncks of the www.jamesbond-fr.com bio section , without first asking us ( things were promptly repared after a tonic mail from yours truly ) , we decided this time to directly propose the French Publishing House in charge of issuing Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche in French language some ideas of our own for the creation ( and administration ) of a brand new French site .
To achieve this effect , the main Web designer of jamesbond-fr.com worked round the clock to propose an original aproach – due to match my precise instructions .
Which were ' no girl with flaming gun in hand , no roaring car , no explosion and no nudity ' .
In short : a clean approach – to favor both 007 fans and new potential readers as well .
Our Web designer perfectly understood the point and rose to the challenge .
We had consequently by mid March some pages to show to the French Publisher .
And then Fate torpedoed us in the guise of someone I met on FaceBook – arguing he was himself working in that very same Publishing House .
We had several common friends I trusted , so I accept him amongst my FB relatives , and then naturally asked him to forward the CB promo website proposition to the right person .
It then seems a much more trustee and faster way to get in touch with the right persons , don't you think ?
WRONG !
Cut to one month later ( April ) and roughly thirty mails later : we still hadn't heard back from the French Publishing House PR bureau .
I had a nagging feeling in my stomach and began to reconsider the validity of using that FaceBook ' Friend ' as a go-between .
Comes May – a rather busy month for me with its annual Cannes International Film Festival .
By then, I had finally heard again from the mysterious FB guy , who even had the nerves to ask me where I was staying during the Festival ( assuring he was going to appear there by the second week ) . Never saw him there .
Back in Paris by mid May , I was now officially seriously worried .
It was obvious our proposed French Promo site project couldn't be used anymore – we simply didn't have enough time left before the French launch ( June the 1rst ) to do a proper job as we thought earlier back in March .
I decided then to fluke the unofficial approach and simply try to directly contact the PR bureau .
I had been fortunately in touch earlier with one of the two translators hired to do the French version of Carte Blanche , and that person kindly pointed me – minutes after receiving my email – to the Attachée de Presse put in charge of the French promotion .
Turned out she NEVER received our own project , was sincerely sorry to learn we had put time and labour to try to submit that , and was , of course , interested at once by a proposed collaboration .
Heck, after all, www.jamesbond-fr.com is the biggest 007 French site in term of connections per day , quite simply ...
So here we are .
Do enjoy two of the proposed French Carte Blanche website pages we worked on three months ago ...
And which , mysteriously , never managed to reach the P.B Bureau in time to be officially considered .
Lesson to be learn : beware your FaceBook friends .
You may think it's Daniel Craig answering you but it could also be some nerd frantically typing from his bedroom ...
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