WAAAGH aka S P A R E Flogged As Free At Paid Virtual Event
Pay to watch Harold chatting with Dr Gabor Maté on trauma to get a free book
One can only laugh at the latest tactics by Penguin Random House in a bid to off load S P A R E, with the chance to watch a chat between Dr Gabor Maté and Harold, the Overseas Son on trauma while both flog their books. You have to choose to buy the one by Dr Gabor Maté, but you automatically get Harold’s as effectively that’s what you are buying.
Is it to try and bump up sales figures as each distributor is sending out the books? The cost of a ticket is cheaper than buying the book, so it seems they are desperate to make whatever small profit they can from this virtual event held on 4 March 2023.
Why is it priced so cheaply? To gain maximum attendance even though all you can do is watch the one hour chat, but you can send in a question that may or may not be asked if you hurry and buy your ticket before 1 March 2023. Is this another platform for Harold to moan about his traumatic life again, and to insist he is a victim that has escaped his evil country, and wicked family?
I passed the window of a Waterstones the other day and the advertising material for the book has now changed to red banners screaming ‘half price’. How much did they invest in this that they are having to promote it so heavily to shift the book?
The cost of the ticket is comparable to the cost of the book plus shipping.
UK price is £14.00 plus £2.99/£3.99 shipping for the book = £16.99/£17.99
UK ticket price is £17 plus event processing fee of £2.12.
US price at Barnes & Noble is £25.20 plus $5.99 shipping, add tax.
US ticket price is $33.09 plus $4.04 processing fee
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The event was promoted via People magazine, a Sussex stronghold platform and Barnes & Noble are promoting it on their website too. As the popularity of Harold and his wife plummet, who would waste their time a money on this except the brainwashed cult and journalists tasked to attend in the name of reporting? I’ve read that some people are now disappointed in Dr Gabor Maté, who they consider has stooped low and damaged his credibility by being associated with TOS.
There is of course no recording or sharing permitted, and a recording of the event will not be sent to the attendees either. It’s on Vimeo, so there’s no expense ‘spared’ in hosting the event (Vimeo isn’t available in all countries so not everyone can buy a ticket). For those who don’t attend virtual events, recordings are commonplace, and are then distributed to attendees afterwards. The apparent punishment if you’re caught recording the event is a potential ban on attending any future Penguin Random House events. That’s absolutely dreadful–I’m sure everyone will be too petrified to record or take images from the event, because how can they thrive or survive knowing they might be banned from future events that they have zero interest in?
The duo didn’t appear to bother to attend the NAACP awards this year, and made a virtual presentation to the winner of their sponsored award ‘NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award’ that went to Nabiha Syed of ‘The Markup’, a platform that ironically investigates how companies and websites track personal data and how they use it. Perhaps they should investigate how Archewell uses the data it collects and how it is distributed?
Why didn’t the duo show up to be at the awards as they never miss a chance for ‘date night’ or an opportunity for a photo op to promote themselves? Perhaps TW is still in the plate throwing room in the Montecito mansion, throwing her IKEA plates at the wall after the glowing reviews of the satirical South Park episode where the characters appeared to be based on the Overseas Son and his wife? The response has been so positive, that fans have called for more episodes from the creators of South Park, while gaining new fans in the process.