mostly david ephgrave

I’m annoyed to have seemingly missed out on advertising space outside my Edinburgh venue this year, which is very frustrating as I think it made a real difference last time around. Last year's advert (which I won't have this time, sonny Jim). I was particularly fortunate last year as the bit of the hoarding with my artwork on it was right by the entrance to The Caves, so was pretty much the first thing you’d see as you walked in; fortunate's definitely the word, as if it had been on ground level (as opposed to the next row up) it would have been almost completely obscured by those big industrial bins you see all around Edinburgh. It’s practically a miracle this wasn’t the case for me as that’s the sort of cruel twist of fate that usually stalks me like my shadow. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t get anything at all this year; to redress the balance from last year’s advertising coup. I keep chasing the venue about it, but haven’t had an...

As I write, 1450 pieces of 170 gsm-thickness A5 paper with my face on are wending their way through the letterboxes of 1450 homes in St Albans, just like 1450 pieces of 170 gsm-thickness A5 paper should. The reason for this is advertising, more specifically for our forthcoming St Albans Mostly Comedy dates, which start at the Maltings Arts Theatre this week. We’ve paid for this leaflet drop in the hope it will help spread the word and increase interest in our shows, or at the very least to act as a breakwater between all the usual fast-food menus. In an ideal world we would have opted for a bigger delivery, but this was the most we could afford initially. While our flyers are only going to a fraction of the city’s homes, I’m optimistic they’ll have a positive effect, as we only need a little take-up to make a difference, plus the line-ups are more than good enough to entice the odd comedy fan to a venue that's practically in their same postcode...

One thing I hate, but seem to spend much of my life doing, is self-promoting. Today’s a case in point. I’ve only been home from my holiday for a few hours, yet the time's been devoted to spreading the word about next week’s Leicester Square Theatre gig , both to agents and our Mostly Comedy mailing list. If you scan your eyes over the last sentence, you’ll see I never miss a trick, as I’ve included a booking link within it. If you hold the internet-enabled device you’re reading this blogpost on up to the light, you’ll see a sneaky watermark of my face mouthing the words ‘COME AND SEE ME NEXT TUESDAY’. Don’t ask me how I did it, as I haven’t thought the mechanics through. Despite being a self-advertising monstrosity, I feel desperately uncomfortable with it. I hate the idea that people think I’m always doing it, or that I only get in contact when I want something. Facebook's a good example: I left the social media platform a couple of years ago because I didn’t like...

This morning, I’m suffering from a unique kind of stress that only comes from learning that next week’s gala Mostly Comedy isn’t in the local paper. I can’t complain. The amount of coverage we’ve had over the years is fantastic. I also heard tell that the show was mentioned briefly in a piece on Hitchin Festival last week – but our ticket sales suffer noticeably when they don't write a feature about it. They have a catchment we could never reach on our own, and if we can’t spread the word sufficiently, we risk ending up with a sparsely populated and expensive gig. These days, our shows are sold primarily through Twitter and our mailing list. We’re lucky to have enough subscribers who are genuinely interested in the club to book tickets, plus a handful Twitter followers who repeatedly retweet our posts to push our line-up information about. This social interaction, however, soon reaches its limit, without a push from the local press. You need to reach the uninitiated to...

The most irritating byproduct of Kate Middleton expecting another baby is the shameless promotional tie-in. It was the same the first time around. No sooner was her pregnancy announced, or Prince George born, than scores of companies leapt on the bandwagon. Marketing consultants across the UK rubbed their hands together with glee at the prospect of not having to burn brain cells thinking of an imaginative way to promote their product. They only had to stick the words ‘ROYAL BABY’ at the top of their press release for their work to be done. My favourite examples are the ones that don’t even attempt to assimilate the story. Take this email I received last year, from the rail company London Midland: That subject must have taken milliseconds to come up with. Why did they feel the need to make the connection? People will still travel by train, regardless of a change to the line of royal succession. News of an 8% discount was enough of a reason...