What do you think?
I’ve had quite a few readers ask me about t-shirts, or Downside Army bumper stickers, or various items like those. So I’m considering doing it-I’d quite like to, actually, it’s something I’ve had in mind for some time.
But of course, what exactly to put on them? A DA sticker or keyring or something isn’t hard, but a t-shirt? I want something people would actually wear, you know-there’s no point otherwise-so a sort of generic book cover shirt is out. Obviously I’m not going to get something with my name emblazoned all over it in big letters or anything.
These were my thoughts:
1. Plain t-shirts or v-necks, with a quote from the Book of Truth across the front or back. And on whichever side isn’t printed, maybe my site logo or web address or something, just small but there. I do like this idea-something people wouldn’t know unless they knew-and it would be the simplest and least expensive way to go, I think.
2. Plain t-shirts or v-necks, with a logo or whatever for one of the bars in Downside on the front or back. Several people seem to particularly like the idea of it being Chuck’s, which is the bar Chess spends some time in in CITY OF GHOSTS (no spoilers). I quite like this idea, but it does mean a logo or whatever has to be designed which would raise the overall costs.
3. Chelsea from Vampire Book Club, a really cool review site, designed this awesome logo (which funnily enough touches on something I plan to put in Book 5, so it’s extra cool for me). Actually, Chelsea designed these awesome logos:
Both of which I think are just, well, totally cool. And because Chelsea is so generous and such a good person, she’s perfectly happy to let other Downside fans use the logos as they see fit; I’ll be adding them to the Fun Stuff page for downloading soon. (Or rather, I’ll be giving them to my webguru to do that, along with the deleted scenes from CITY OF GHOSTS.) Until then you should be able to save those images anyway as full size.
So those are the options I came up with, basically. Do you guys have any others? Which do you like best? Like I said, I want to do something that people will actually be able to wear and not feel silly or like they’ve been turned into a big advertisement. Something a bit more subtle and interesting and fun. So please, any thoughts you may have, throw them out here!
Aaaand, one other thing. I shared a release day on Tuesday with Christopher Golden, who is seriously one of the nicest, coolest men I’ve ever met (we met at Dragon*Con last year, and we’ll both be there again this year, so I’m quite excited about that!). His release was a reissue of the first book in his really cool Peter Octavian series. The book is called OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS, and seriously, Christopher is a really, really good writer.
And, he said this about UNHOLY GHOSTS: “Stacia Kane’s UNHOLY GHOSTS blends horror, fantasy, and dystopian future noir with thrilling, twisted results,” so you know he has good taste in books, right(hee)? But no, seriously, he likes the books, and you guys like the books (I presume, since you’re here, unless you’re here to send hate messages or leave comments telling me how much my books suck), so there’s a common perspective there, a common opinion of what is and is not cool/fun/interesting/scary/etc. So I really do recommend you take a look at OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS. This reissue is the first of four, which will culminate in an all-new fifth book, and they’re all being released on pretty much an every-other-month schedule.
And I guess that’s it for the moment. I won’t be around much next week but I will try to check in; I’ll see if I can get some pictures I’m happy with when we all go to the Mai-Kai for dinner (it’s this enormous, totally cool Polynesian restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, where they have a floor show-which we usually skip-and an enormous menu of tiki drinks and a big tiki garden and all kinds of stuff. It just kicks ass, and we’re going to go at least once, because that’s what we do).
But do let me know your thoughts on t-shirts etc., and if you have any other ideas do speak up! You can always email me if you’re not comfortable giving them publicly, or comment anonymously if such things make you nervous or whatever, too.
Originally posted at Stacia Kane. You can comment here or there.