Former News of the World journalist Kizzi Nkwocha says he is set to change the way the media buys exclusives by launching "the world's first story auction website", Kiss ‘n' Sell.
Nkwocha, who worked as a journalist for 13 years before entering PR, said his new venture, kissnsell.co.uk, was insprired by auction site eBay.
He said: "As a publicist, our agencies are responsible for marketing stories around the world. In the past, we'd done this the conventional way, by making phone calls and sending faxes, but we noticed the success of eBay and thought that it would be a good opportunity to bring the media market into the 21st century."
One exclusive story already being auctioned on the website is about the world record attempt for the longest kiss by Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
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cheat Charles Ingram and his wife. The starting bid for the story is £100 — at the time of going to press no bids had been placed.
On how much he expects to make for a story, Nkwocha said: "Prices for the stories will vary according to the wishes of the seller, and just as in a traditional auction house you will have a reserve price for a story and the auction will run for a set number of weeks.
"But typically, as a publicist, you'd sell a story for anything between £10,000 and £70,000, depending on how big the story is and how much in demand the people behind it are."
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Nkwocha said that he was encouraging clients from his PR agency, PRhq, to auction their stories, and in the future he hopes to have at least four or five stories up for auction at any time.
He said: "More people are beginning to regard the internet as a legitimate way of doing business. Kiss ‘n' Sell is a natural progression in the way the internet has been developing over the past five years."
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