Time to Read

I got a bit of a surprise this week when my college kid told me she was reading The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub; because of her current class workload (including a hefty course in western lit) I thought that she didn't have time to read for pleasure. Then she mentioned that her boyfriend had given her the book because it's his favorite, and it made a little more sense (and now I know the boyfriend is a serious reader -- gave Mama here a moment of utter joy.)

As busy as work/home/life is it's easy to assume people don't have time to read. I used to feel apologetic when I give someone outside my circle a book because I bought into that myth, but the truth is most people will make time to read a book -- as long as they're curious enough or think it's worth it. Thus getting people properly motivated to crack those covers and dive in is the real trick.

I read a lot about books online, and the one thing that captures my attention 99% of the time is humor. If you can employ something fun (a cute video, a tongue-in-cheek post, a list of laughable points) to get me interested in your book, I'm usually motivated to invest. For this reason I also frequently use humor when I recommend other author's books; I know how well it works on me.

Other factors involved in me making time for a book:

Cover art and quotes don't impress me (occupational hazard), but short and very well-written cover copy or a teaser can, as long as there is a strong, substantial hook involved. Has to be pretty tantalizing, though.

Online samples are great motivators, but I think most authors post too many chapters. At most I read only the first page or two of a sample or excerpt, and I don't think I'm alone in this.

Recs from a reliable source are great as long as they've never burned me in the past with a lousy read they've pimped for a publisher or pal. Sources can be anyone in your life -- one of my neighbors is at the top of my trusted rec list because she's never once steered me wrong.

Notoriety can create buzz but I'm kind of contrary when it comes to that; the more notorious and buzzy a book is, the faster I run from it. Interesting and thoughtful discussions about a book work better for me.

Freebies like short stories set in the same universe or part of the story told from a different angle always get my attention because I've used them so often to promote my work, and I'm always intrigued to see what other writers are doing. I like free stuff a lot, too, and a freebie gives me a chance to test-drive the author before I invest. If I don't care for it, I don't get mad because I didn't spend any money on it.

I don't borrow books from anywhere but the library, but if I was more of a dedicated e-reader I'd probably check into the loaner options the e-booksellers offer and swap books with another e-reader pal. Unfortunately my Nook died last summer and I haven't gotten around to replacing it.

What motivates you to make time to read? Let us know in comments.

Image Credit: robynmac

When I Can't Write

This past week bad weather has been keeping me offline, which has reduced my writing time on the computer to only an hour or two every day. When this happens (and every summer it generally does) I try to work on editing hard copies or tinker on story ideas, but I'm pretty dependent on the VRS for handling the bulk of my writing. Fortunately this year I have a lot of non-writing promo projects waiting in the wings, like the giveaway totes I'm making for Her Ladyship's Curse, my August release. Here's one I just finished:



Because I had extra time on my hands to work on the embellishment, I let myself go a little crazy with it (no pun intended):



I also experimented with a new technique to pad the inside of the tote, both to cushion and protect the beadwork and make the interior a little more unique. This also turned out nicely:



All the hours I spent sewing gave me time to think about writing, too, and that's an important part of my process. Writing a story is not just about getting it down on the page; at times I have to let things simmer and sort through what comes out of the mix. Having the down time gave me a chance to run through the story I'm working on and visualize things and do a bit of rearranging. I stopped sewing now and then to make a sketch and jot down some notes, but it was sitting and just thinking about the story that helped me the most. When I finally did get a chance to turn on the computer and write, I went to town and knocked out three times the amount of work I usually produce.

It can be frustrating, wanting to write but being unable to due to circumstances beyond your control. Next time, don't let it annoy you -- use the time to think about your story. You might find that when you do get back to the actual writing you have a lot more to put on the page.

Librarians Want Promo

Got this heads-up by e-mail today:

The Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (www.OLSSI.org) is looking for promotional items to give to their attending librarians at this year's conference. This is a great opportunity for writers to reach out to those all important librarians who can hand-sell and recommend books to patrons. Around 100 librarians will be in attendance. They are looking for bulk of up to 100 or individual items including overstocks and ARCs. If you would like to donate some of your works or goodies to the cause, please contact Katie Mihaly, OLSSI Steering Committee, at 419-372-7908, or [email protected].

Evidently the theme for their con this year is noir and mystery fiction, so if you're publishing in those genres your promo will probably be especially welcome. Also, for those of you who are librarians but can't afford the $225.00 registration fee, OLSSI is holding an essay contest here that will award three winners free registration; deadline for entering is April 22. There are some other conditions involved so do read the rules carefully.

Have Giveaways, Will (Virtually) Travel

Hardly seems like author propaganda to post this cover art (it helps that he's very cute and green is my favorite color).

With my upcoming May release of Nightbound I'll be wrapping up The Lords of the Darkyn trilogy, and I'm putting together some packages of all three signed books (including one audio package of the entire trilogy) as well as other reader delights to give away here and elsewhere. I also have seven days still open to impose myself on other people's readers, and naturally I thought of you all.

Seriously, if you'd like to have me make a guest appearance on your blog or journal during the first week of May, please contact me at [email protected] and we'll discuss the details.

Opinions Wanted

These are fonts I'm considering for use with promotional materials for Disenchanted & Company, my new urban fantasy series for Pocket Star. I've whittled down a long list of possibilities to these, but I can't make up my mind which is the most attractive/appealing of the final five.

Which one do you like best? Please vote by number in comments.

Improving the BookLoop

I've been steadily working on improving my most promising bookmark reinvention, the BookLoop, and thought I'd share what I've discovered so far via trial and error.



First the loop component material: I've tried elastic cord, beading cording, silk ribbon, velvet ribbon and so forth, and to date my #1 favorite material for the loop component is 3/8" organdy ribbon, which I buy in fifteen yard spools that are sold as special occasion ribbon. On sale you can purchase it as cheaply as a dollar a spool, and most fabric and craft stores have a ton of it in innumerable colors (and if you don't see it in the ribbon section, try the bridal or flower-arranging aisles.)

I like the transparency, the flexibility and the durability of organdy, which is thin enough to thread through a tapestry needle. It usually retains its crispness and resists fraying even with frequent handling. Also, it knots beautifully and stays knotted.



Although I love to bead, and continue to play with designing beaded anchors, I'd say solid pendants and pendant-brooches have proven to be the most secure and easiest to assemble anchor components. You can thread your cord or ribbon through the stringing opening or loop of the pendant, which is always more sturdy and secure than a jump ring or independent connector. Plaid has a new series of beautiful metal pendants that feature great works of art by masters such as Da Vinci, Klee and Monet; currently two medium or one large Plaid pendant cost $3.00 each at Jo-Anns. I've used some of these for the limited-edition BookLoops I've put together for my Nightborn promo giveaways.



For pendant-brooch combination pieces I feed the ribbon through the pin mechanism as well as the stringing hole for extra support. If you're making a giveaway item with this type of component you might want to remove the pin mechanism first, or at least warn your recipient that there is a pin on the the back so they don't end up sticking themselves with it.



I became very frustrated working with jump rings because they're flimsy and tend to bend back open too easily. Then I discovered double jump rings, which are exactly like the rings used for key chains. They're a bit tough to handle, as their size makes feeding components onto them a bit of a challenge, but it's worth the trouble because once the component is attached the ring doesn't separate under handling pressure, so it won't come off.



I've been looking for interesting and offbeat objects to use as anchors, and one little item I discovered were miniature glass bottles. Here's one I found filled with little bits of golden stone. You can find these at Claire's on their BFF necklaces, but craft stores often carry empty ones you can fill yourself; just make sure you get the ones that have a connector ring attached to the cork or stopper (which you also have to glue in place once you fill the bottle.) Because these are glass and/or choke-sized I don't recommend using them for BookLoops for kids.



I had been searching for a scroll-type pendant or charm for months to use with my Nightborn promo BookLoops without success, and finally decided to make one myself. I tried paper, paperclay and metal with not-so-great results before I went back to beads. I found some very cool color-changing decorated tube beads for the body of the scroll, and stacked two accent beads on either end to give it the look of a scroll. Bottom line, if you can't find what you want, experiment/design/make your own version.

I've also been hunting through oddities for anchor ideas, and finding a lot to inspire me in steampunk art supplies: old keys, dominoes, non-sharp watch components, compasses, loop-backed Bakelite buttons and that sort of thing. For kid-friendly BookLoops I've been playing with party favors, bubble-gum machine toys, miniature dolls and tiny stuffed animals. You can probably find a lot of fun components in junk drawers and the bottom of toy boxes, too.

For my next collectible series of BookLoops, which I'm making as promo items for Nightbred, my second Lords of the Darkyn novel, I decided to go with a seashore theme that relates to the story. I thought about using the pretty shells I've collected for years (and dreaded the thought of trying to drill holes in them) until I found a terrific series of "Sea Life" pendants and jewelry-making components by Blue Moon at Wal-Mart, also priced at about $3.00 each.

I'll keep working on improving my BookLoop. While organdy ribbon is just about perfect for the loop component, it's not really something that would appeal to most guys. I'd like to find another material, maybe some type of thin/plain cording that men wouldn't mind using as bookmarks for their reads.

Since I first came up with the BookLoop a few people have e-mailed me to ask if they can use my design for making personal, promo and commercial versions of their own, and that's all fine with me. I did this for fun, not profit, so please feel free to use the idea however you like (and if you improve on it, I'd love to see and hear about the results.)

Collectibles

I'm back and mostly recovered from road drag (like jet lag, only harder on the lower back.) The weather was not especially great for long-distance driving, and I never again want to navigate my way through the mountains in the freezing rain and pitch-black darkness, but all's well etc.

A couple of months ago I ordered my reward for finishing my latest book, and weirdly enough it arrived a few hours after I turned in my revisions to my editor:



I didn't get a chance to take my kid to see Breaking Dawn part 1 last year when it came out in the theater, and although she's really outgrown the whole Twilight thing I thought we'd watch it together to see [part one of] how it wraps up. I didn't realize I'd ordered the collector's edition, though; I just clicked on the DVD edition that came with a $5 rebate. I like rebates.

When I took the DVD out of the shipping box it felt rather heavy, so I opened it to see if the discs were made out of marble or something. Inside was the usual shot of the star-crossed menage plus a couple of ordinary discs:



But under the pop out wedding scene in the center I found this:



It's a real fake flower from the real fake wedding in the movie; an actual prop from the film. I know this because a certificate of authenticity is also encased in the acrylic holder; I got bogus bud #19124. While it's not especially rare -- going by the numbers there are 157,999 other collector's editions out there -- I admit, I was kind of charmed. I've never before owned an authentic movie prop. My fake flower is a little flat-looking; maybe Bella stepped on it on her way to the altar. Or sat on it at the reception. There was a reception, right? How do vampires have a reception?

Anyway, I showed it to my kid, who also thought it was neat. She was a bit puzzled over the reason for my purchase, though. "I'm kind of over the whole Twilight thing, Mom," she said, "so why buy the movie?" Before I could make an excuse, she wagged a finger at me. "Aha! You never finished reading the last book."

"I've been busy," I told her, and that was true enough. And while I sincerely admire Stephenie Meyer for getting so many teens to read, and wish her all the best and much continued success, nothing on this earth could convince me to pick up that novel again.

The fake flower is pretty cool, though, and I think it shows some true inventiveness on the part of the Twilight marketing team. For diehard fans of any age there's probably nothing quite as exciting as owning a tiny piece of something that is so significant to them.

I've been working on my own modest assortment of promo items for the release of Nightborn. I decided to go with things I love to do (read, quilt, assemble, bead) and use what skills I have in those departments to design, make and/or put together my giveaways. I've also come up with a special Nightborn design of my BookLoop to give away with every book I sign, which makes that a (very limited) edition collectible. And while my promo will never match the plethora and distribution of Twilight fake flowers, I think readers appreciate having a one of a kind item just as much as the mass-produced variety.

What do you think of collectibles for readers? Let us know in comments.

Ready-Made Promo

Next month I'll be invading making guest appearances on some other blogs in NetPubLand, and for all my visits I'm planning a giveaway as well. I think signed books are always best, but in keeping with my color outside the lines directive for this year I'd also like to do something special with them.

I went to BAM to get some inspiration, and wandered over to the bookmark rack to see if they had any new products. I found four that jogged my imagination in different ways: The Book Holder by That Company Called If; a nifty little man-shaped plastic clip that holds your book open while you read it ($3.99); a foiled and embossed double-sided inspirational bookmark by Vibrant Expressions ($2.99); a Plant Me I'll Grow bookmark by Lil Bloomer that is embedded with annual and perennial wildflower seeds ($2.99); and a neat little box of twelve Herman Yu Flora bookmarks by teNeues ($6.95).

Using a ready-made product as a promo widget isn't anything new; writers have been doing it forever. The weirder the item, the more attention it gets -- I remember one RWA National I went to where one author had parked a basket of real chili peppers in the goody room. I'm not really into the gimmicky promo stuff, so I prefer to build around a product, using something ready-made as a theme for the rest of the promo. Back in December, the snowflake tote I picked up at B&N became the central theme of my holiday giveaway, from the Let it Snow title to most of the bag's contents.

teNeues' box of bookmarks caught my eye because there were a dozen (one for every month of the year), the bookmarks individually were cheap (about fifty-eight cents each) and there's a place for notes on the back of each one (readers who like to keep track of what they read could jot down titles there), there are two of each design (perfect for sharing with a reader friend) and the flower theme is attractive but general enough that I can pair a lot of things with it. For this giveaway I could go with flower seeds and gardening stuff for a floral theme, an all-year theme with calendars and other time management helpers, or a share-with-a-friend theme by offering two of everything.

Some ready-made items can also be a jumping-off point for your promo; you add some items to help with the use of your theme product (such as a gardening guide, a pretty flower pot and a pair of weeding gloves for the bookmark with the seeds embedded in it.)

As a reader I'm most attracted to unusual promo that has a practical purpose. I like things I can actually use, especially when I went to conferences and had a limited amount of space in my suitcases. I love tote bags and I use a million of them, but I've never found one used for promo that was particularly sturdy or had pockets for small items. I passed on most of the custom promo, as even the most attractive cover art on an item becomes quickly dated, and unattractive cover art is just sad.

One final note: the more gimmicky something is, the more leery I become, especially when an item poses more of a hazard than a benefit. The basket of chili peppers I mentioned definitely grabbed my attention, but as someone who frequently cooks with them I know they shouldn't be handled without protective gloves on. So that promo actually backfired; I didn't touch the peppers or take any of the actual book-related stuff parked with them.

Design Your Own

I was picking up some photo paper at Office Depot today when I spotted this printable magnet paper for inkjet printers. This is the kind of product that for years I wished someone would invent, as I love creative magnets and have a nice if limited collection of my own on our fridge. So I bought a pack of 5 sheets and brought it home to test it out.

I will say up front that cost-wise, the magnet sheets aren't cheap. Office Depot charged me $16.49 for a pack of five sheets, which works out to about $3.30 per sheet. Not a product I'd buy for a huge quantity of magnets; you're probably better off going through a printer for those. But for small batches I thought this product would be ideal. Fridge magnets are usually no larger than a business card, so you could expect to fit six to eight images per sheet, bringing the cost per magnet down to about fifty cents each.

Like most standard printer paper, the sheets are 8-1/2" X 11" in size, and about the same thickness as a heavy cardstock. One side is white semi-glossy (like photo paper) and the other is the black magnetized material. The entire sheet feels like plastic, not paper.

There were no particularly special instructions involved in printing; I just popped it in our old inkjet, although the manufacturer does clearly warn not to use it with any other type of printer but inkjet as it may damage the printer. In my photoshop program I put together a random set of my favorite photos in different sizes along with my cover art for Nightshine and sent them to the printer. The sheet came out with beautiful, crisp images that were much better than I expected (note: the instructions do say to wait until the sheet dries before you try to cut it.)



First I put the entire sheet on the fridge to see if it would stick, and no problem there. After a few minutes the sheet dried (I left it on the fridge to dry) I trimmed it using my paper guillotine. One nice side benefit; the magnetized sheet stuck to the metal edge of my trimmer and didn't move or shift while I was cutting it down. I also tested cutting the sheet with regular scissors as well as a rotary cutter; both worked fine and cut through the sheet easily. The individual magnets also stuck nicely to the fridge, and looked like something I might have bought at a store.

As to what you can do with magnets you can design and size yourself, the sky is the limit. Authors, here's a painless way to make promo cover magnets, release schedule magnets, and web site or blog URL magnets to hand out at cons and booksignings (and I find this product far superior to those sticky-backed business-size magnets intended for business cards that everyone has been using for years.)

This product is also ideal for things like fun family photos, inspirational quotes, a list of emergency phone numbers, addresses, contacts or basically anything you want to display on your fridge or other metal surface. Proud moms can take the best of their kid artwork, scan it and make a magnet version that will last a lot longer. The gift and craft possibilities are endless, too. Writers, if you're kicking around title ideas and not getting anyway, you could print out a list of keywords, cut them up and make fridge word clouds with them.

Poets, I don't have to tell you what this product means for us. Finally we can design our very own custom sets of magnetic poetry! I've already begun compiling mine.

Btw, you don't have to have a commercial-grade or expensive printer to use this product. The printer I used for mine is about six years old; a Lexmark all-in-one, and while it's been a nice, reliable printer for us it's really nothing special. The end results were much better than I expected. I'd just make sure you clean and align your printer if you haven't done that in a while, and print out a test page on plain paper first to make sure you've got everything the way you want it on the magnets to save wasting a sheet of the much more expensive magnet paper.

Widget Quest

Now that I've tried reinventing the bookmark, my second creative challenge is to come up with three widgets to use with promo for my upcoming Lords of the Darkyn trilogy. The immediate problems: I'm not a widget lover; I think 99% of all widgets are a waste of time and materials. I want something unique and different that is my idea, which rules out all the mass-produced advertising-type junk (thank heavens.) And I want to make it myself, which limits the range of possibilities to what I can reasonably produce without making a complete hash of it.

I've been keeping my eye out for inspiration and hoping the universe would conk me on the head with something fabulous. Which it did last night when I made a stop at World Market for some international treats. I always check their bargain bins for interesting sale items, where this time I found a set of three notes made into scrolls:

     

It was a real eureka moment. Scrolls are what books were before there were books, and as it happens Nightborn, the first novel in the new Darkyn trilogy, features a scroll as an important part of the story. Perfect idea for a widget! I even knew what I could do with different materials to make it low-cost, give it my own personal spin, and end up with something that has a good chance of not landing in the trash bin.

Next problem: I've never actually made a scroll, so I needed to do some research. I promptly went over to BAM to hunt for some how-to guidance, and in the process found Alisa Golden's Making Handmade Books. This is practically an encyclopedia of book making, and features a wide variety of beautiful and unusual bindings and forms. Ms. Golden offers fully illustrated, step-by-step instructions paired with beautiful finished examples of the different styles, so you can see what the end result should look like. Btw, if you're an art journalist, book maker or someone who for whatever reason fashions and binds your own books, this should absolutely be in your library.

Lucky for me it also included how to make a scroll book, the instructions for which I can adapt to use for my widget project. Reading through it also gave me a great idea on how I can secure the scroll in an interesting way and still assure that every component of the widget can actually be used for practical purposes. I love art, but I love not wasting or throwing away things even more. Now I just have to experiment with the design and put together some prototypes to test out the vision and see if I can make it work in reality.

Facebookless

I can't seem to escape the clutches of the evil empire Facebook; one of my publishers just sent me a powerpoint presentation on how to create a Facebook fan page for myself in order to take part in their latest marketing effort, which included these instructions:

In order to obtain a Vanity URL, you must first have 25+ “Likes” on your page.

Aside from the fact that I'm not so vain that I would even consider setting up my own fan page, I'm stumped. Likes? Likes what? My books? My hair? My sparkling personality? I never got the Likes memo. Anyway, I keep reading, and find this:

Spread the word! Friends and family are included! It’s okay to ask your friends, family, and co-workers to “Like” your page.

So they don't think 25 complete random strangers would like my page? Maybe they're right. Only a very few friends I know in real life visit here occasionally, so maybe the rest of you 6,993 people stop by here every day because you don't like me. Go on, tell me, I can take it. I know my Mom still likes me. Sniff.

Kidding. I get what they're trying to do. Fortunately I'm off the hook: according to my kids a fan page for me already exists on Facebook. I can't look at it because (rimshot) I'd have to first join Facebook. But apparently these nice people like my books enough to create a genuine fan page, so that should get me excused from faking one, the thought of which to be honest makes my skin crawl a bit. All's well etc.

Since last year I've also been getting these be-my-friend gems e-mailed to my fan e-mail account every week:



This kind of Facebook SPAM that disturbs me because I know at least one of these people is an author. Not that I think he's a fan or actually wants to be my friend, but I can't even send the professional courtesy of a polite no-thanks unless -- you guessed it -- I first join Facebook.

Which brings me to this practice of using the word friend to connect people via social media. I find it a bit troubling. One of the reasons I never considered using LiveJournal (aside from the fact that I'm not cool enough for it) is because they employ friend as means of linkage coercion. I friend you, you friend me, and we're all friends. My (obviously picky) belief that the word friend should have more meaning than simply the right to use reciprocal links is definitely not in step with the times.

Also, if someone asks to be your friend, they're paying you a compliment, right? Unless they just want a link so they can boost their traffic, in which case, maybe not. Of course if you say no for any reason, you're behaving like a snotty unfriendly jackass, which encourages negative backlash, expecially from those who for whatever reason expect to be friended. Every time I think about the friend thing I give myself a headache.

I realize social media offers many obviously irresistible marketing opportunities. I respect the working writers out there who take the time to do all this stuff, too; frankly I don't know how you guys handle it and keep up with the work. I'm just concerned that it all seems to be heading in a direction that is self-defeating and devaluing.

Thus I will continue to be Facebookless, and do my own thing, and see what happens.

Promo No-No Ten

Ten Things You Shouldn't Do to Promote Your Self-Published e-Book
(The PBW Edition)

Ask me to review it: The answer is no. This does not mean I hate you, or that I'm a print-published snot, or I'm part of a legacy publishing conspiracy to squelch your genius and/or kill the sales you were stealing from us before you cause our antiquated system to collapse into some tar pit where we'll bellow pathetically as we slowly drown. The answer is no because I'm a writer, not a reviewer.

Bribe me: Unless it's five million tax-free dollars, don't even bother.

Convince my mother to get me to read/endorse/promote/blurb it: It never works. My mother is a nice lady who will say yes, take your CD, and put it in a safe place at home. After that it will stay there for all eternity, because in a day or two she will forget you, what she agreed to do, your e-book and where the safe place is.

Describe your personal problems and explain how my purchase is going to solve them: Call me a pessimist, but I honestly don't think my three bucks will get you through that nasty divorce, stop the foreclosure on your house, pay for that gastric bypass surgery or get you back into rehab.

Disguise your promo with unsolicited advice on how much money I could be making by self-publishing: Yeah, that's totally going to dupe me.

E-mail me an unsolicited free copy: Oddly enough, this is not going to tempt me into reading or reviewing it. This is going to make me delete your e-mail and divert any future e-mail that comes from you right to the SPAM folder.

Offer reciprocal pimping: I don't sell my self-pubbed stuff, sorry. It's insane, I know.

Patronize me: While I acknowledge the weighty depth of publishing experience bestowed on you during that unbelievably stressful fifteen minutes you spent uploading your first novel to Amazon.com, you just might want to rethink this strategy, grasshopper.

Send me a discount coupon code: Use some logic here. If I wouldn't take a free copy, why would you think offering me a dollar off the cover price would be the temptation I could not resist?

Warn me that I'm missing out on the best book of the year: Sorry, I've already read that one. Alas, you didn't write it.

Character Trading Cards

Three years ago I came up with the idea of creating Character Trading Cards as an alternative to the usual character info worksheet. I also thought it might be a fun way for authors to promote their work.

It seems the idea has resurfaced, as folks have been asking me for links, so I've unearth the old posts from the PBW archive vault and checked to see what's still working.

The free online generator I used to make my first example is still working nicely, as does another free card generator over at Read Write Think. We also had another pretty neat discussion here with lots of ideas from everyone about using trading cards as promo.

When I made my first card (you can see the full size original here) I wanted to use it mainly as a personal/quick character reference, so I listed things like Lucan's talent and scent. When you make cards for yourself, you'll want to jot down the most important facts you'll need for writing purposes.

A card you intend to use for promotional purposes should have things like the novel title and a teaser, like this one I made up today for Nightshine at the top of the post. On both cards I used cropped cover art images that depict the characters, but you could probably tweak the card to show an image of the entire novel cover.

Other ways you can use trading cards as promotional items: design one for your blog or web site that shows the URL, an avatar or graphic associated with your site, and a brief description of your content. If you're a Twitter or a Facebooker, add on those contact URLs. Series authors, you could probably fit thumbnails of your covers and titles in reading order on your cards. Cards for upcoming releases could include the date they hit the shelf and ISBNs.

If you want to make your trading card about you, I'd put your bio photo or a business graphic on the card, all your contact info and a tag line that describes what you do, i.e. "freelance editor" "cover art designer" "romance author" etc. A trading card could probably be scaled down to the size of a business card, although you'll have to watch the quality of the graphics and font size, and see if it's still readable when you print it out.

For printing purposes you'll want to use cardstock or a decent weight photo-quality paper. I remember that I did experiment with printing mine out on scrapbooking paper, printing on the white side so the print side would be the backing, but the results weren't that great and the card was too flimsy. Scrapbooking papers may have improved so you might see what's available at your local craft shop. If you're planning to produce a large quantity of a single design it may be cheaper to have them professionally printed.

Back when I originally proposed the idea authors Shiloh Walker and Sasha White actually ran with it and did amazing things with trading cards for their characters and novels. My old links to their examples aren't working, but I believe both authors printed and used the cards as real promo items, so they'd probably have some good advice.

The Book Wubbie®

Have you ever wanted to read a novel while wrapped up in the warmth of a cuddly soft blanket? Frustrated with all those cheap fleece throws that only offer ugly wide sleeves and those silly, embarrassing patterns?

PBW Promo Enterprises has the solution for you: the Book Wubbie®, the very first blanket you can read! Yes, fiction lovers, our patented revolutionary micro-print process takes reading to the next level by combining the books you love with ultra-soft coziness to keep you comfortable and toasty while you read!

Listen to what our customers have to say about our exciting product:





Please don't be fooled by high-tech imitations! The Book Wubbie® is not a gadget, requires no batteries or cables, and comes complete and ready to enjoy right out of the box!. You never have to worry about connecting it to the internet to download your novel because the book is already part of the blanket!

No gift says "I love you and I want you to read more" like the Book Wubbie®, which envelopes your loved ones in downy softness as protection against chilly nights while alleviating their boredom by providing a wonderful book to read that they don't have to hunt around the house for, go to the library to check out or borrow from a friend! Yes, the Book Wubbie® is truly the most incredible gift for both the mind and the body!

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[Not available in all states, countries, authors or genres. Void where prohibited. And where not prohibited. Okay, I made up the whole thing.]

Lilah Arrives

Frostfire hits the shelves today, and one of my duties as its author is to tempt you into purchasing it.

If it were a car, I could pop the hood and invite you to admire its gleaming engine while I regale you with details of its many innovative features. I could point out the care with which I designed and built it, and mention some of the pleasures involved in taking it for a ride. For once even the exterior on this one is pretty neat (God bless the factory paint job people.) You won't find anything else like it on the market, I'd say, and it wouldn't be a lie. Too bad it's not a car.

Perhaps I could go for the emotional blackmail approach like James Patterson. I noticed he did another of those Buy my book or I'll kill my protagonist TV commercials during the holidays. It's true that novel royalties are my sole income, and healthy book sales assure that I remain employed, which is ammenable to you, yes? Okay, maybe not. I need to employ someone who no one will want to suffer, which isn't me . . . maybe the new puppy?

Not a hair on my dog's head will be harmed whether my book sells or not; let's just be very clear about that upfront.

But imagine little Skye looking up at you with her sad and beautiful dark puppy eyes, while a sign around her neck reads in wobbly lettering: Please, buy my human's book. She's so small and helpless and entirely dependent on me for buying her growth assistance food, paying for her vet visits and restocking her supply of toys. Only she's too busy playing tug-of-war with Cole and the stuffed toy candy cane that squeaks. I want to kill that candy cane; does that count? Probably not.

I could do the artist thing and talk about the novel's new world-building (Frenchman's Pass and the Ahnclann), the unusual characterizations (alternately dreamy and nightmarish to write), and how three of the cast constantly tried to steal the story for themselves. I could tell the story behind the dedication and the lucky dictionary thing between me and author Larissa Ione. Or mention that one, spooky line that came out of nowhere; so perfect and so unexpected and shook me up so much I actually had to stop writing for a couple hours so I could process what had just happened on the page. Like any writer, I'm certainly capable of boring you with all the details. Willing to? Not especially.

We'll just have to go with the standard. So:

My new book Frostfire is being released nationwide today. It's a book about the Kyndred, third in the series, but more of a standalone this time around. For those of you who liked Samuel Taske from Dreamveil, he's part of the story, as are Nick and Gabriel from the fourth Darkyn novel, Night Lost. If you have a bookstore gift card or some cash left over from the holidays, I hope you'll consider checking it out.

Or if that doesn't tempt you, look into these eyes:

Follow the White Rabbit

Benjamin Lacombe's Il Etait Une Fois (Once Upon A Time) is one of the most visually gorgeous book videos I've ever seen (video link swiped from The Presurfer, which also just turned ten years old. Happy Anniversary, Gerard.)

Support PBW Ten

Ten Reasons You Should Consider Buying (or Requesting) Dreamveil by Lynn Viehl

Alexandra and Michael from the Darkyn series make a cameo appearance in the book.

Everyone so far has been surprised by the ending. Seriously surprised. Well, not my editor or my agent, but they read the synopsis before the manuscript so they cheated.

How well this book does will have a direct effect on what novels I will be writing and publishing in 2011. If you like my dark fantasy, buying this one or requesting it at your library is an effective way to vote for more.

I finally caved in responded to many reader requests and this time included a French-English glossary in the back pages so that you'll know exactly what words like Écrase mean. Not that I'm saying Écrase to everyone who wrote and demanded a glossary. Dansant says it in the novel to Bernard. They're French. What?

It's shipping two weeks early, so you probably won't have to wait until June 1st to get a copy (and you don't have to wait; I've already hit the top twenty of the NYT mass market BSL twice so they aren't yelling at me about that anymore. But if you want to wait so that my release week numbers look stunning and my agent has to stop whatever she's doing and e-mail me when the Times list comes out, I won't argue.)

Recombinant DNA: it's a beautiful thing that inspired me but that I do not use as an info dump sledgehammer with which to club you throughout the story. Promise.

Rowan from Shadowlight is the protagonist; you'll also see more of Drew and meet Paracelsus and Taire. Originally I had not planned to make Rowan a protagonist until book three or four, but requests for more of her story came in such a flood after Shadowlight released that I decided to shift her novel to the number two spot in the series plan.

Sales from the purchase of the novel will provide much-appreciated income for my publisher, my agent and yours truly. I don't know what they do with their take, but among other things my share finances 100% of the things I do here at Paperback Writer (which is also why there are no ads in your face when you come here.)

The print novel is lightweight, highly portable, does not require batteries, a power cord, on-off switches or scroll buttons to operate. Simply open the cover and, like magic, the story begins. Alas, I can't say the same about the e-book, but since that now appears to be trapped in price-squabbling limbo, you might want to get the paperback.

There is an orange tattooed man wearing a wrinkled wife beater featured on the cover, but I personally guarantee that in the story he's not orange, wrinkly or a wife beater (disclaimer: he is tattooed, but his sleeves cover up the ink most of the time.)

Buy Dreamveil from my favorite online bookseller, Barnes & Noble.com

Buy Dreamveil from Books-a-Million.com

Buy Dreamveil from Borders.com

Buy Dreamveil from Amazon.com

Advergrins

Wouldn't it be great if every ad we saw made us laugh out loud?



(I think from now on this will be my personal metaphor for "interrupting Mom when she's working.")



(This is even funnier if you and your amour started out looking like the couple on the left, and now look like the couple on the right.)

See more hilarious print advertising over at Web Design Ledger and real world advertising at UKInsurancenet.com.

(Thanks to Gerard over at The Presurfer for the links and the laughs.)

Forever Young image credit: srhbth

Making Promotion Fun

Now and then I visit Adverblog to see the latest in online interactive marketing. I thought Give It a Ponder, the new LG campaign to educate consumers on thinking before they text, was smart, funny and interesting even to someone like me who doesn't text at all. It was genius to have James Lipton do the videos (that guy always tickles me.)

We still don't have a lot of advergames in Publishing, and I think that's an area of online marketing that needs some serious exploration. Author Douglas Clegg's Isis difference game was great fun as well as a brilliant promo idea. I became addicted to it and played it a couple dozen times and never got tired of it, plus the illustrations made me wonder about the sotry. I think I read somewhere (and forgive me if I'm wrong here, Doug) that half a million people have already played it (Added: via Scribd*, Doug tells me to date 2.3 million people actually played the Isis game. That seriously raises the bar for all author promo games.)

I just downloaded Orchid Games's Christmas giveaway, HeartWild Solitaire, features seven short romance stories incorporated into the game as prizes for winning. The graphics are nice, the background muzak isn't completely annoying, and there's an online top scoreboard you can post your score (not that I think I'm ever going to show up on it; the top score was like 3K higher than mine.) It works on Windows Vista, in case anyone is wondering.

While it's not free, the one game I'm really looking forward to is Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, an interactive computer game based on Marjorie M. Liu's novel Tiger Eye (the very first video game to be based on a romance, I believe.) I think the preorder price is great, and if the game interests players in Marjorie's books, it definitely doubles as an advergame.

I wanted to see if I could create my own promo game for free, so I went around to a couple of sites and played with some online game creation generators. The easiest one for me was Fyrebug.com, although the first game I made doesn't work perfectly -- I messed it up, or the game template was flawed to begin with -- but this will give you a general idea of what you can do on your own (warning for people at work, if you start any of the following games they play music):

Added: I moved the games I made over to the stories blog here because they were messing up the front page of PBW. Have no idea why; maybe it was the coding.

Of the three I made myself I liked the WordSearch best because it didn't have a run-down timer, I could customize it with words from my novels, and while it wasn't too simple it wasn't impossible to solve. The slider puzzle was a bit too simple; it only took me 43 seconds to solve it. Of course I made the quilt so I know every inch of what it looks like; someone who wasn't familiar with it might find it a bit more challenging.

If you consider putting together a promo game for your blog or web site, my advice would be to keep it simple, use images versus words or titles (the smaller and more detailed the image, the harder it is to see) and don't make it impossible to solve. If you keep a running high score page or widget I can guarantee you people like me will be back to play again and try to improve our score. Somewhere near the game you should post an excerpt from your latest or upcoming release, a link to an online bookseller site where it can be purchased, and links to other online games by authors.

*Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I no longer reccomend using their service. See my post about this scam here.

Yes, Another Online Toy

This is another thing that is too cool not to share -- Infinite Comic is an online genator that takes "a random image from Flickr superimposed with some random text off of Twitter based on keywords of your choosing" and creates a three-panel comic strip from them.

I tried it and got these generated (click on images to see larger versions):



Lynn Viehl - This has to be some pics from one of my LB&LI winners over the summer. :)



StarDoc - Not sure whose bookcases these are, but love the toys.



Charlene Teglia -- the artwork came up at random, and somehow, it's perfect.



Shiloh Walker -- Shiloh's name brought up this wonderful dog pic. I'm totally jealous.



Marjorie M. Liu -- Of course, Marjorie gets not only the best cover art but her own lolcat, too.


If you don't want to go random, you can customize it -- using the advanced link, I was able to input a URL for my latest cover and the words for each panel: