Creative Fruit Packaging

There needs to be more marketing aimed specifically toward kids, like these packages of fruits and cheeses. Go here to see more of these wonderfully creative and whimsical offerings. And if your local grocery store doesn't have these, create your own!

Having a Book Signing When All You Have Are E-books

I've been to several book signings with other authors. All of us are basically e-book pubbed, but several don't have their works out in print yet. So the dilemma becomes "how can I do a book signing when I don't have any books to sign"?


Here's some of the relatively inexpensive and easy solutions I've seen, I've followed, and am passing along:

1. Do a slide show of your covers and various pictures which go with each title. Have the show viewing on your laptop or netbook at your table.

2. Or you can burn a DVD of your book trailer videos and show them the same way.

3. Have a drawing for a free e-book. People just give their names and emailing addys, and pop them in a box, a hat, a bowl, etc.

4. Burn a CD of PDFs of your cover and first chapter of each book, and give the signed CDs out.

5. Use Oriental Trading for inexpensive gizmos which are "themed" to your books/genre. Attach a business card or a signed bookmark to them, and hand out.

6. People will keep bookmarks with tassles or charms attached. You can also do postcards this way. Don't forget to sign them!

7. Give out tiny bags of candy (colored cellophane works great, and it's cheap!). Be sure to attach a business card or bookmark.

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Readers, any comments, additions, or suggestions?

Looking For a Unique Marketing Tool?

My new car had a dealer's frame around the back license plate, and I told my husband I was about to take it off.  He suggested I get a personalized frame, and I found one here at Autoplates (dot) com.  Very reasonable!

If You've Ever Had One of THOSE Book Signings...

This is absolutely the most hilarious video I've ever seen when it comes to authors attending book signings!
Shared from my marketing eloop.

I Heart Great Tips

I love it when I'm reading on the loops or on a blog about a problem an author is having, and then read a very easy and sensible solution.

Take for instance Google alerts.  I have an alert set up for Linda Mooney, but I may get a ton of responses, some for just Linda, some for only Mooney, but not that many with Linda Mooney.

Here's the tip.  Put your alert words in quotation marks like this:  "Linda Mooney".  From then on you will get alerts ONLY for those words, and in that order.

Cool, yes?

I Was Interviewed Over at Blazing Trailers!

Kim McDougall interviewed me over at Blazing Trailers. You can connect with their blog HERE.

If you're not familiar with this site, and you have trailers of your books, check them out! They are a terrific marketing tool!

http://www.blazingtrailers.com/

(Adult site) http://adult.blazingtrailers.com/

A Mooney Marketing Tip - Free Excerpts

It costs pennies per disk. All you need is time.

Buy CDs by the bulk, and use those white paper envelopes to put them in.

Hand them out at all book signings, in each book order you mail out, or send them to friends and fellow authors who are seeking freebies for giveaways!

Here's what you do:

Prepare an ad for each book.

Include a picture of the cover,

a direct BUY link (from your publisher's website, Fictionwise, ARe, wherever!),

ISBN number,

genre,

link to your website, MySpace, and YouTube (if you have a book trailer video),

BLURB,

EXCERPT (be sure to give a rating for the excerpt!).

Save as a MS Word file, or better yet, convert into a PDF file (you can find free PDF converting software on the internet.)

If you save every ad in one folder (mine is labeled PROMO DISK), then all you have to do is "drag and drop" the folder to burn on each disk.

I also found out that you can even drag and drop those .mpv files on the disk, too!

A Mooney Marketing Tip - LinkTiles

A free service (best kind, right?)

You can find it at www.linktiles.com

You upload the covers of your books, or your avatars, or whatever jpeg or gif that relates to you. You include embedded links to your website, your publisher, wherever you want interested folks to go.

The object of LinkTiles is that it's a concentration game. If LinkTiles chooses one of your pictures to include in their game for that day, you get an email letting you know.

Business Card vs Pen - Getting the Most Bang For Your Buck

I belong to a neat little marketing email loop. Every so often the question comes up "Should I invest in business cards? Or would I get more bang for my buck distributing pens?"

Okay. I've been used both, and here's what I've found out (by accident, and by asking around.)

* Business cards get lost or thrown away.
* One reader said that if she saw a book she wanted to get, she'd write the title on the back of the author's card.
* One reader confessed she collected authors' business cards like her mother collects Hummel figurines.

* Pens work great if they don't clog or leak.
* Pens get USED. A used pen is another chance to advertise.
* All-in-one pens are best, as opposed to pens with removeable caps.
* Get black ink. Most businesses prefer important documents filled out in black ink.
* If a pen gets left behind, someone else will pick it up and use it.
* Pens that write on that slick cashier paper are worth their weight in gold.
* One can never have too many pens.
* If you get pens in different colors, people tend to fight over a particular color (i.e. "I want the blue one!")
* GREAT marketing tip: At book signings, have the reader pick out a pen you then sign the book with, and hand them the pen as a keepsake.

Please drop your opinion whether you use one or both to promote your books. :)