A bit late but still ...France got its own Carte Blanche

Each new Ian Fleming Publication James Bond novel is nowaday marketed like a Hollywood blockbuster .
With Press preview , Press launches and multi medias promotion campaign .

Such was of course the case of Carte Blanche , the latest Continuation novel ( although I guess this term isn't really favoured anymore by the IFP people...) penned by American Thrillers auteur Jeffery Deaver .

Promotion started last Summer - with an invitation to discover the new writer in London .
The operation was very hush hush - so secret indeed that no France medias ever reported the event...Despite frantic attempts by yours truly to try to raise the interest around that litterary reboot of Ian Fleming's most famous creation .

Cut to late May a year later , with the Press presentation of the new book set in London Saint Pancras very chic Champagne Bar , reputedly longest bar of Europe ( people will do everything these days to get into the Guiness Book of Records I guess... ) .

Having been kindly invited by the P.R people of Hodder & Stoughton and the Colman Gety agency , I was nonetheless forced to pass the invitation to a friend of mine based in the UK - for practical reason . Impossible to get an affordable EuroStar ticket for London less than a week before proposed departure date . Sigh .
Thanks to the superb Journalistic skills of the aforementionned friend ( none other than Simon Gardner, John Gardner's son ), we were able to present French James Bond fans with some exclusive photo reports of the whole day ( mucho gratias indeed , Mr Gardner Jr ! ) .

The book was due to be in store the very next day in England - May the 26th to be precise . As in most of the World - the English-speaking one , that is .
But the French publisher - Flammarion - has already selected another publication date of its own : a week later , June the 1rst .

At first I thought they had delayed publication because of internal problems ( getting the French translation right - which they almost managed . There are still some minor errors regarding military ranks and stuff ) but the reason was much more simple : Flammarion's own publication calendar was organised in a different time setting way - and they simply couldn't have proposed the French version of Carte Blanche by May the 26 as with the rest of the World .

So once again, people might say the French have done everything to be pointed at again but I can assure you that was merely due to a different publication calendar setting .

Last but not least : Flammarion issued a brand new French promo website to tie-in with the release - to which content I participated in some capacity.
http://www.007carteblanche.fr/

P.S : now that I have read the full novel I can safely state it is indeed a vast improvement upon the last one penned by Sebastian Faulks . Strangely enough I kept having the image of Daniel Craig while reading it . Oh , and don't be afraid by the publicity ' Re-boot ' stint . Re-boot it may be as was then labelled the ' Licence Renewed ' John Gardner first novel in 81 .
In short : Fans won't jump to the roof while reading the litterary 21rst Century adventures of Mr Bond .
Pfewww . Thank God for that !
On another hand , must sadly report the botched job done by Flammarion's translaters - who obviously didn't know scratch from the world of Fleming when they decided to tackle the job of translating Jeffery Deaver's work into French . Military inaccuracies , basic mispelling , and sometimes...complete misunderstanding of classic lines ( come on , who in the 21rst century cannot translate correctly ' shaken and stirred ' I ask you ? ) .
Which is rather sad for it anihilates most of the interest sustained by this great story .
Coincidently , Flammarion decided to try to ' re launch ' the title by mid July - following disappointingly low sales in the past month .
Heck, like I told'em ' you do not launch a Bond book with a zero promotion budget . ' ( which they did , unfortunately ) .

If you want to win a French edition of Carte Blanche - or a complete set of Eon 007 movies on DvD ! - , try the competition in the ' Concours ' part of the website

Carte Blanche : the French Promo site that never was

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 ...

Carte Blanche... A la Carte !

We are glad to report we'll be working in advisory capacity with the P.R agency in charge of the French Carte Blanche promo campaign .
French release date of the book will be June the first ( due to a peculiar Flammarion publishing calendar , title couldn't be announced on May the 26th as with the international editions ) .

The French cover will be – in all modesty – one of the best looking of the whole bunch with a silver Ian Fleming Publication 007 logo impressed on the Carte Blanche motive ( several variations were proposed till that one was finally agreed by all parties and decided upon ) .

No gadget tie-ins this year ( such as the mini Devil May Care booklet which was inserted as a freebie in various French newspapers ) but a massive huge poster campaign in Train Stations and Metro .

The name's Armstrong... Vic Armstrong ...

Received today copy of Robert Sellers's Vic Armstrong biography " The True Adventures of the World's Greatest StuntMan " .

The CV of that guy would make any decent Film fan blemish with awe ( Some fan - namely Steven Spielberg himself - signed the introduction of the book ... ) .

Am about to devour it by the night .

More details tomorrow...

" No well dressed man should be without one..."

One of the most memorable stunt of the 4th James Bond movie ( Thunderball ) appears in its precredits sequence . 007 escapes the Villain's lair by casually flying off the turrets of the Chateau d'Anet , using a revolutionary type of vehicle , the Jet Pack .

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Despite its impracticality in the real world, the Jetpack made a spectacular debut in Thunderball. Although Sean Connery is seen in the takeoff and landings, the main flight was piloted by Gordon Yeager and Bill Suitor.

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You Only Read Twice ( if it's a good book )

Okay , think you know your litterary James Bond , eh ?

Here's a selection of rarely seen ( some would say ' almost mythical ' ) titles linked to the agent with a Licence to Kill ...

First , the 1967 pastiche ' Holmes Meets 007 ' - written by journalist Donald Stanley in 1964 . In which the 221b Baker Street duo encounters James Bond and M in very unusual circumstances ... Two limited series of the book were produced , running from number 1 to 221 (b , of course ) plus 25 additional copies for friends & family ( numbered I to XXV ) .

Then we have the strange case of the supposedly real Glidrose approved novel ' The Killing Zone ' - which finally turns out to be everything but official !

The Killing Zone relates the story of 007 going after a drug lord in Mexico after his friend and colleague, Bill Tanner, is murdered by said Villain ( plot looking suspiciously like the 16th James Bond film , Licence To Kill , released four years later ) . Book is known about the Fan communauty mainly for its shocking ending , with the funeral at sea of Commander Bond ( in grand You Only Live Twice - filmwise , tradition . ) .

Initially published ( or so it seems ) in 1985 , the precise year no new John Gardner official 007 novel appears on the market , it finally turned out to be nothing but a fraud from a so-called Thriller writer ( actually an ex convict ) apparently badly in need of some publicity ...

More recently - in 1997 - surfaces in official merchant sites ( such as Amazon ) the strange ' Your Deals , Mr Bond ' ( Not to be mixed with John Gardner's ' No Deals , Mr Bond ' novel ) - which even appears to be included into Wikipedia datas research pool .

A collection of bridge-related short stories published by B.T Batsford .

The title piece is a short story featuring James Bond, who is assigned by M to defeat a villain named Saladin who is threatening to explode nuclear bombs in several major cities ( with a plot like this , you could be forgiven for thinking said book is written by a tenth grade pupil...).

Carte Blanche : Your Mission , should you decide to accept it ...

Wonderful stuff received this very day in my mail box ( the real one - not the Matrix-like ones ) : an A4 plain white enveloppe encrusted with the literary 007 logo . Send by Hodder & Stoughton ...

Enveloppe seemed to contain unusual stuff when I picked it up : surprise , a brand new MP4 reader , complete with set of headphones , Usb link and a Press announcement about Mr Jeffery Deaver's next James Bond novel ( you know , the one with a French title . Hoorray ) .

Truly Mission: Impossible stuff ... Was almost expecting after fiddling with the controls that the thing casually blew in my face .

( Have to confess that , although being myself a true geek regarding new technology gadgets , I'm definitly not the Engineer type . You know , the one who can instantly understand how works the latest Tokyo manufactured gadget ...)

Hence a few minutes ( nah, let's be honest : a good half an hour ! ) fighting with the thingie , just to try to have it ,well, ...Passing on its ' on ' mode .

Don't laugh , I'm embarassed enough .

Anyway , the Technika MP4 Player containts the Carte Blanche video animation ( which can be seen on the official site ) , music tracks ( 2 ) , Radio tuning , Recording function, etc.,etc...

Hats down to the Communication bureau who thought of that great idea .

Haven't had such fun since receiving the blue Promo diskettes for the Independance Day movie launch way back in 1996 .

Can't help wishing to have next a vintage Aston Martin DB5 parked right in front of my house in Paris , with a buxom Blonde as Chauffeur ...Come on, Hodder & Stoughton, please ...