I´ve been reading 1001 ways to Market your Books, a 700-page tome by John Kremer. The name speaks for itself. It has loads of interesting ideas, and I´m constantly picking through it.

The author describes the importance of handing out your business card at every opportunity. He tells the story of one realtor who sold a house because he enclosed his card each month in his electric bill.

There are all sorts of schemes that writers use to get noticed. I´ve got a few ideas of my own: this website, my video – filming date set for next Wednesday, magazine article submission, and even – gulp, perhaps – stand-up comedy. I´m going to Yuk Yuk´s this evening to check out amateur night.

The other day when I was walking by the train station I noticed several women handing out flyers for a bank, promoting its higher interest rates. This got me thinking. It´s not a terrible idea but I figure most recipients would lose or toss these flyers out. So what could I do, that might draw future readers to my website? And then it hit me, bookmarks.

If you walk out of Chapters, brand-new book in hand, and somebody was to hand you a shiny new bookmark, would you toss it out? I don´t think so – you´d put it in the book. And if that bookmark happened to contain information about my blog and book, do you think you might visit it? Perhaps. And if the person handing out the bookmarks was well dressed and not a complete schmoe – i.e. the author himself? I´ll be hitting the bookshops this weekend to see what happens.

Oh - and my bookmark is not this wide. That’s the front and back.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Promotion. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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