Up Smith Creek

George Smith. The White Lion Press Limited.
Published 2011. £12.95 +postage and packing (see order form for details).
Softback, 316 pages. ISBN 978-0-9553993-4-3.

Fine writing, sharp insights and delightful humour.
For fundraisers and direct marketers there’s a lesson on every page.

George Smith enjoyed many years as a much loved and looked-forward to columnist of several leading trade journals, particularly Direct Response and Professional Fundraising magazines and the cryptically-named Local Government News. From time to time he’d also pen a piece for national organs and so there’s an article included here from New Society and another from The Financial Times, plus at least one that never saw its way into print but which we deem worthy of inclusion all the same.

George wrote monthly columns and occasional features and it is the best of these that we have assembled for you here. He rapidly gained a reputation for irreverence, perception, the deflation of pomposities and, above all, fine writing. Many of these pieces are as relevant, or irrelevant, as they were at the time of writing. Others have been included for sheer curiosity value, or just because we like them. We think there are some real gems here, but of course it is up to you to make of them what you will.

George does use and choose words elegantly, deploying pearls such as scrupulosity, seeping, pooh pooh, blather, and a hundred other terms to which you will be unused and by which you will be amused.

This book is mostly a journey backwards in time across three productive decades of working at the noble trade of communication. As chairman of the UK’s Institute of Direct Marketing Terry Hunt said, ‘He was a must-read when these pieces were first published and is a must-read today, as plain common sense and rare wisdom never date.’ Read, learn and enjoy.

‘...some of the funniest, most perceptive and most entertaining editorial ever written about the UK’s emerging direct marketing sector. These articles are politically incorrect, provocative and irreverent – you’ll love them!’

Paul Rowney, founder and publisher, Direct Response Magazine

See also Asking Properly and Tiny Essentials of Writing for Fundraising.

.

’George Smith has rare wit; he writes extremely well; he understands better than anyone I know the important art of cajoling money from people for good causes. He makes the rest of us feel our living has not been made in vain. What George has written made sense when he wrote it, makes sense now, and will make sense 50 years from now to those who have the good fortune to come across this collection.’

Drayton Bird, Drayton Bird Associates Ltd, London
Author, Commonsense Direct Marketing