MAKE A DATE
Bookings are welcome for book-signing, speaking and
personal appearances by the author (subject to availability).
In the first instance please contact:
Contact the Author's Office:
mercurybooks@btconnect.com
or email
Carol Jones (Former PA to Sir John Harvey-Jones)
tel: 01600 712387
LECTURE LIST
'A fluent and entertaining
speaker with the ability
to hold an audience by
the extent of his
personal knowledge.
Feedback after his last
talk was excellent.'
- Prof. Colin Barrow MBA,
Head of Enterprise Group,
Cranfield University
Motivation
Every crisis is an opportunity
Divorce, accidents, redundancy, ill-health - all can bring about a sudden, life changing experience.
Richard found himself at an unexpected mid-life crossroads that turned his world upside down. Find out how he
coped with his personal crisis and used it as the inspiration for a new and exciting challenge.
Business
Coping With Growing Pains.
First delivered - Cranfield University, Business Growth
Prog
There's no bigger challenge to a growing company than the management
of change. Succeed and the business will prosper, fail and the
business can stumble or die.
Richard has been up the learning curve the hard way with two start-up
companies in the media industry. One grew to employ over 100 staff,
the other more than 200. Here he tells how to prepare for the perils
of the Greiner graph of growth through a combination of leadership,
planning, measurement and above all good communications.
Special Feature: Costs of Growth/ Sources of Finance
Selling up without remorse.
First delivered Cranfield Uni (School of Management)
Thinking of selling your business or part of it? Owner-managers take
work home with them. It's personal. Often they see the business
(and its senior managers) as more like a family. So is it treason
or a triumph to sell up? How to plan it, who to sell to, how to get
the best price? Richard sold out of one business so he could start
another. Later, he sold that one too. Why and how did he do it and how
does he feel about it now?
Journalism
So You Want To Make The News.
First delivered to 6th form students, Milton Keynes
College
A four-session lecture and practical workshop on delivering the news.
Contrasting the presentation styles and requirements for TV, radio and
newspapers. Interviewing techniques; copy writing; considering the
audience and sorting fact from comment.
Good journalists are born not made.
First delivery commissioned - University of Northampton
What makes a good reporter - training,
intuition, bravery, attention to detail, inquisitiveness, a sense of
natural justice? All this and more, argues Richard, who can draw from 30
years experience of working as a journalist on local, regional and
national newspapers in the UK and writing as a correspondent around the
world.
Special feature: Monopolies in the Media and Editorial Independence.
Writing and publishing
Joined up writing...
First delivered - Luton Uni, Creative Writing degree students
"I can't publish books that are great literature if they don't sell," a publisher admitted recently.
"We'd be bankrupt in weeks." Discover how to make your manuscript marketable - how to connect the
realities of an increasingly commercial world with your masterpiece of fact or fiction, while still
keeping your editorial integrity intact and earning good money from your writing.
Special feature: Giving those article editors an offer they can't refuse
Publish or be damned.
First delivery commissioned as a five-week course of
seminars - Adult Continuing Education Dept, Milton Keynes
When it came to sales and marketing, Richard was
so disappointed by his first book's publisher that he decided to buy back
the rights and do it himself. In six months he got himself 50 dates for
book-signing and speaking events, harvested a sackful of publicity and
sold thousands of copies. Here's how.
Booklet of original articles accompanies this series
Travel
From Our Own Correspondent
Commissioned as a seminar on Travel Writing by the
Northamptonshire Libraries Service.
For 12 months as a 'Grown-up Gapper' Richard travelled the world writing stories
for newspapers and compiling a
book
about his many adventures (and
misadventures). Among his experiences were visiting the ill-fated Twin
Towers in New York, witnessing President Bush's election, being caught in
a gunfight in Fiji, tear-gassed in Canada, bag-napped in Argentina and
sung to at the Sydney Olympics.
Story Of The Daewoo Challenge
Delivered to a variety of groups and audiences during the author's recent UK Tour
In one of the most amazing adventures of modern motoring, Richard and a young
student graduate drove a small family hatchback from the UK to South Korea to
raise money for children in need. His
book has received wide acclaim, and in this illustrated
talk he recalls much of the danger and excitement of that epic journey.
Driven Together - the new Asian Highway
Illustrated talk for travel fans, business groups and car enthusiasts
A ceremony at the Commission of the United Nations in Bangkok, opened the door to one of the most important journeys of modern motoring when Richard was invited to make the first car crossing of the Asian Highway, a new road network stretching from Tokyo to Istanbul (and then onto London). His first-hand account of that historic trip - achieved James Bond-style in an Aston Martin and with an accompanying
book - relives a journey of remarkable colour and incident while also raising serious questions about the 'unintended consequences' of these new Silk Roads.
