I'm not a doctor

And we're not a law firm or anything like that.

But as a service firm, we are consultants. I mean, we get paid to tell our clients what sort of advertising they ought to run, if they ought to run advertising, what the message out to be and so forth and so forth.

It's what we sell. Like, for a living.

So why is it that some people are so comfortable asking for free advice? If you want to pay us to work out your media strategy fine. But if you're going to do it yourself to save the money, don't send us e-mails asking whether you should be on the right-hand page or the left, whether you ought to be in the special section or not.

See, here's how it works (take notes if you must): If you hire somebody like us to place your media, then somebody like us does that sort of thinking and advising for you. If you opt not to hire somebody like us to do that work, then nobody like us has any reason to do that sort of thing for you for free.

It's commerce, m'dear. Capitalism. The American way.