Book Promotion On A Shoestring Budget
Not Quite A Shoestring Budget!
Promoting your book when your wallet has mothballs in it can be a challenge. You want to make the best impression you can with what you got. As the US Marines say ‘Time to Make Do.’ With $150 bucks, here’s how I did it on a shoestring budget.
The Wish List
I started out wanting postcards for sure of my cover. I also wanted stickers of the title “Pawn Takes Rook” because in theory it’s going to be a logo. And of course giveaway swag like trinkets and goodie bags. Thank the world for Oriental Trading for cute goodies for not a lot of dough.
The places I had considered included:
Pros and Cons
Moo: I go through them for my business cards. They also do stickers. They are also incredibly expensive. I love them, I get great comments on my business cards, but they are ultimately too expensive for something I am just going to give away.
Vistaprint: Way too expensive, oddly enough. And I couldn’t be sure of I was getting what I truly wanted with how unclear the sticker pricing was.
Next Day Flyers: Mark Rossmore of Escape The Clouds goes through them for his postcards. I have a couple and the quality is rather nice. They also do stickers and are more clear about the templates and pricing.
Standout Stickers: Gorgeous work. I am looking forward to one day using them. At the current moment, too expensive for the shoestring budget.
But Then… Bookmarks?
So I reconsidered my options because no matter where I went the stickers seemed a little out of my price range. Then someone mentioned bookmarks are always an awesome item to sign. And upon pricing them? Next Day Flyers was my winner for conquering the shoestring budget.
Final Budget Tally
Or I should say in the Rockapella Carmen Sandiego Voice “Da Loot!”
So going with Next Day Flyers I’ve budgeted for 100 postcards, 250 bookmarks.
From Oriental Trading I’ve scored a few goodie bag things such as superhero rubber duckies, rubber bracelets with superhero sayings, and some bulk candy.
From Etsy of all places, I scored a template for these little guys of superhero Tootsie Pops. Are they not the most adorable things?
And there’s still room in the budget for a $20 Starbucks Giftcard.
All in all? I spent $130 and some change. With still enough left over to wiggle around on some things.
Got Mothballs In Your Wallet?
It just goes to show, if you live in a lifestyle where you need to make every penny stretch to the limit, you too can score some fairly awesome swag. You have to be creative, consider price points, make allowances for what you can do right now and what you can do later. One thing I want to do is give away mini hand sanitizers from Bath And Body Works, but it’s just not in the cards this go round.
Look at what you can do and look at what you’ll need to have done by a professional. Do you bake awesome cookies? Can you concoct a recipe in theme with your work? Go for it! Do you draw? Make origami? Do something with that! Are you good at graphics? Make your own flyers! There’s always something you can do.
Wishing you all the best in your promotions.
In closing, as this post goes live, I am currently out of the country and away from the internets. Hello from Cozumel in the Yucatan Peninsula!
Originally published at Lex Chase. You can comment here or there.