New printed material for promoting Esperanto

Hello Tim

Just to add a word of praise for the new booklet by Hokan.

Some will say that it is not perfect - neither is Esperanto bytheway - I personally do not like the American English in the booklet which uses "recognized" rather than the British English "recognised". The constant use of the word "Esperantist" also makes us look like a sect.

However if we all go around poppy chopping, we will certainly get nowhere. The national executive of "Esperanto-Asocio de Britio" will be discussing the booklet this weekend and the response may be "we do not need this" however the same is also said, by some, of Esperanto.

If we look at the target audience including journalists and MP's, we have absolutely nothing to give them. In Britain, at our national conferences in the last few years we have had three British MP's as well as a member of the "House of Lords". WE HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO GIVE THEM.

Incidentally there may be financial gain in printing http://ikso.net/broshuro/pdf/malkovru_esperanton_en.pdf in that if for example Esperanto USA prints and sells to national Esperanto Associations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa as well as other countries where English is the official language, a profit might also be made.

There are also those who say "we cannot afford to pay money for publicity" However publicity is our lifeblood ;without publicity Esperanto will certainly die.

Some posters already exist...
http://esperanto-usa.org/en/node/42

(Hmm, mi esperas, ke cxi-tiu komento ligigxos al la gxusta antauxa komento, tiu de Darsi.)

Wow, in my opinion, most people (especially Americans) would not be very interested in Esperanto reading this huge brochure. I personally don't like it. I agree with Lee Miller that it's just too long.

Also, British English is a turn off to me as an American. Someone needs to get with the program. We are in America, not England. (Again, just my opinion.)

If I were new again and never heard of Esperanto, I'd like to read a very short introduction about Esperanto, and then go from there. Then maybe that brochure might seem interesting, but definitely not as the very first introduction to it.

Here's my "about Esperanto" page. It fits on the computer screen without scrolling.

http://paulaesperanto.wordpress.com/what-is-esperanto/

I think if E-USA prints "several hundred copies" there's a high likelihood they will sit on a shelf somewhere until they're well beyond the stage of "outdated."

I think it would be much more useful to make it available on an "as needed" basis, if that's possible.

Also, it's worth noting that at 24 pages this booklet is really too long for someone who is casually interested in "what is that?", and not really long enough to provide useful information to someone who has become interested in the language and the movement. I'm a little unclear about who exactly the target group would be.