Swag Newbie Experiments at RT

RT2014 Book signing

The recent RT Booklovers Con in New Orleans was only my second attempt at doing swag. I was such a newbie at my first book signing several years ago that fellow Word Whore Jeffe had to kindly alert me to the fact I probably needed some and by then it was too late to get anything too spiffy. I had a generic business card decorated with a peacock feather print, generic (but cute) King Tut pins and some stickers to which I managed to add the title of my book. Oh, and Hershey's kisses, which I put into a vaguely Egyptianish bowl.

That signing went well and people actually did like the King Tut buttons but of course there was nothing about the pin to remind them of my name or my books.

For RT, I procrastinated. I  think I was feeling overwhelmed by all the chances to do promo and ads and not knowing what to try, never having been to RT before. I already talked about how I decided to just let RT flow over me this time and see whether I wanted to go again (Oh YESSSSS) and if so, what promo would be effective. All well and good but if I was planning to be at the book signing, then I needed some things. Even I knew this by now!

I'm so grateful to Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs, who I'm pretty sure was astounded that I waited til literally the last moment before asking her if she could make me business cards and bookmarks. But she took the challenge on (bless her and her team) and the items arrived just before I had to leave for RT and were gorgeous.

I spent one day cruising eBay and Oriental Trading Company and a few party supply sites online, looking for other potential swag. I love to shop by the way. I had to rein myself in that RT probably wasn't going to allow me to go for the 8' Temple Arch or even the 6' Column, much less the folding 4' Sphinx, all of which I found in prom decorations. I also found a lot of potential mummy swag that was scary and/or ugly. I only wanted good associations with my ancient Egypt books, not "Frankenstein Meets The Mummy" type stuff.

I decided to get about 30 of each item, figuring I'd see what Readers liked, and then go in that direction for my next major swag event. I went ahead and used more of the King Tut buttons I'd already bought in 2012 (not going to tell you how many of those I had ordered. Suffice it to say you'll see them from me for decades to come LOL.) Same for the pretty stickers, but at least I attached my spiffy new business card to the back.

My Mummy suckers from Oriental Trading were a hit - cute, tasty, different from Hershey's kisses. The miniature papyrus bookmarks (see below) were also very popular. My only problem with them was that in each package of ten, there were two that misspelled the name of the Egyptian god, so I had to give those to Goodwill. So I ended up with 24 for the price of 30. Sigh. The heiroglyphic pencils weren't a hit.

I might do pens next time, as everyone says they're popular. I did actually order ten pens as a test case. Yeah, they arrived from Egypt a week after I got back from RT.

Realizing I was concentrating on my Egyptian paranormal series and ignoring my science fiction romance, I

ordered magnets of the two book covers. Um, ok note to self, please check SIZE when ordering. They were HUGE. I put them on my refrigerator and my daughter took one but I didn't bother carrying them to RT. OMG. I definitely plan to do magnets of the book covers again but not ones that take up a huge chunk of real estate.

So, all in all, I felt good about my experiment and I have a better idea what I'll do for the next RT book signing I attend.

Swag: Unique May Be Overrated

There were tee shirts. I cannot say this ever sold a single book, but I really liked the notion of people wandering around advertising.

Sad truth: Shirts and printing = $$$
The materials were of mediocre quality and didn't last all that long.

I've not done another foray into wearable things. Mainly because of cash. Also, you can guess I did the shirts when I still had a house because it isn't like I could store boxes of shirts in multiple sizes aboard the boat. So. Space. Pain and suffering. Cost.

That said, the people who walked away with the shirts all seemed very pleased. I got photos from all over the country of people wearing them. THAT was fun.

For a couple of conferences, I needed swag to add to larger swag bags for Linnea Sinclair's Intergalactic Bar and Grill. Her advice? Blinky shit. She may have that phrase trademarked. I usually needed 200 - 300 of something. Thus, I'd turn to my favorite search engine and search on LED toys or glow in the dark toys. A huge array of websites offering all kinds of light-up novelty gizmos will pop up. Most of them price their items for buying in bulk. You'll find glow sticks, glow necklaces. Acrylic glasses with LEDs imbedded. Anything on this earth you could possibly want and a few you probably wouldn't. These things, because they were lumped together into a larger swag bag, usually needed to be labeled with my particulars. Generally, I affixed whatever goody I'd chosen to (moar swag alert!) bookmarks or cards.

Vistaprint did my bookmarks and book cards. The work is fine. The price point was good. The cards and bookmarks are STILL being given out. When someone asks me what I do, I invariably get asked whether I have a card. I can hand out a bookmark with a cover (and all of the 'find out more' info) on it. It's worked out well. Much easier to store, too.

I'll admit to having a favorite piece of swag. He was for the first book (which has aliens in it.) 100% useless. But I loved them, nevertheless.

Swag Bag

by Allison Pang

When it comes to giving away swag, I've started to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it.  Part of that is just trying to find the right balance - the cost of producing it versus the whole "return on investment" thing.

I honestly couldn't tell you if swag directly results in sales or not - but sometimes swag isn't really about selling a book as much as it is about selling the product that is you.

When my first set of books came out, I jumped on the bookmark bandwagon - as well as the trading cards (which you can read more about here in this post from a few years ago.) While I liked the uniqueness of the trading cards, they are really more for fans of the books than they are about getting new readers, so when you're trying to figure out what might work best for you, be aware of which audience you're going for.

That being said, I've collected a lot of swag over the years at various cons. The best swag is small and easily portable - I'm more inclined to pick up things I can use like pens or bookmarks. (Though with ebooks, I don't even use bookmarks anymore, so I tend to look for teh pretteh.). I'd stay away from larger items, to be honest. One con I was at gave people these huge umbrellas in the swag bags - which were nice...but way too big for my suitcase so I ended up leaving it behind.

Compact is good for handing out purposes as well. It's way easier to keep a handful of bookmarks or pens in your purse or pocket and hand them out as opportunities present themselves. (But YMMV - and keep in mind that some cons have actually banned paper based swag simply due to the amount left behind/thrown away, so watch out for that if you're going to a planned event.)

These days the only thing I'm producing swag for is the Fox & Willow webcomic - mostly in the form of postcards that I can either mail out or (more realistically) leave a pile on the counter at various comic book stores that I might run into. Anything that might grab someone's attention long enough to check out the website works for me.

Also, with the advent of things like kickstarter and patreon, don't overlook digital swag - if you're trying to keep print costs down, thing like wallpapers, screensavers or pdfs might be a viable option, particularly with so many electronic devices out there. Something I can use as the background on my phone might be more appealing then a bookmark, depending on the image in question. :)

Also - a quick word of caution. If you have swag out at book signings, etc. keep in mind that anything on the table is often seen as fair game. While a lot of readers usually ask me if they can have something (yay, polite!), I've also had "demo" swag up and walk away when my head was turned. (Usually samples I was displaying that could be bought in an online store - usually it's small stuff, like keychains or whatever, but I've had stuffed toys walk away too, so just be aware!)

Release Day for @JeffeKennedy

It's a Tuesday party here in the bordello because it's Release Day for our Sunday Word-Whore Jeffe with the first book in her new fantasy series The Twelve Kingdoms:

The Mark of the Tala

The tales tell of three sisters, daughters of the high king. The eldest, a valiant warrior-woman, heir to the kingdom. The youngest, the sweet beauty with her Prince Charming. No one says much about the middle princess, Andromeda. Andi, the other one.

Andi doesn’t mind being invisible. She enjoys the company of her horse more than court, and she has a way of blending into the shadows. Until the day she meets a strange man riding, who keeps company with wolves and ravens, who rules a land of shapeshifters and demons. A country she’d thought was no more than legend–until he claims her as its queen.

In a moment everything changes: Her father, the wise king, becomes a warlord, suspicious and strategic. Whispers call her dead mother a traitor and a witch. Andi doesn’t know if her own instincts can be trusted, as visions appear to her and her body begins to rebel.

For Andi, the time to learn her true nature has come. . .

Buy it on:   Amazon          B&N          From Your Local Indie Bookstore  

_________________________________

As for the weekly topic of swag? Well, I'm the sort of girl who has a thing for pens. Nice pens. The ones with the squishy grip. Wait, wait, before you groan and roll your eyes...

Pens have feet.

They must. How else do you explain how they disappear from your purse? Your car? Your desk? Jebus, you just signed the receipt with the damn thing. Where did it go?

It walked away.

It walked onto the bill tray at the restaurant. It hopped into the pocket of your repair man. It went sunning on the counter at the car dealership. Oh, the mischief it's gotten into at day care.

It may start in a box on your table at the signing, but oh the places it will go that you never anticipated.

Convention Swag - What Really Matters

Convention swag?

Okay, here's mine. Was it good? Hard to say.

It's *always* hard to say, which is why this week's topic - Conventions: Swag: What You Offer & What You Keep from Others - is so interesting. We all want to offer the memorable treat. The certain something that will be kept and - vitally important - inspire book sales. If we had that magic button, no doubt everyone would press it.

As is, it's a guessing game. A well-meant one, much like birthday-gift shopping on a miniscule budget. How to delight without breaking the bank?

This year at the RT Booklovers Convention, to celebrate the release of The Mark of the Tala, I did keychains. Because... well, useful? And pretty. I had the cover put on the rubber-stuff keychains by 4Imprint.com and then I attached the pretty blue feathers. The feather that's so symbolic in the book is actually black, but the blue seemed more fun and matched the cover.

I'm all about the pretty.

Did people like them? I think so! The pic above was taken by Joy from Joyfully Reviewed, not long after she picked up a couple from my table at the big booksigning. 

#RT14 beauties by @jeffekennedy pic.twitter.com/UrXbYb6F8a
— Joyfully Reviewed (@JoyfullyReviewd) May 17, 2014

During the Pub Crawl, while my editor Peter Senftleben and I gossiped and drank hurricanes, Editorial Director Alicia Condon handed out more keychains for me. It wasn't so much that she loved my swag, but that not many authors seemed to bring any.

Because that's the ground level, as far as I'm concerned - have SOMETHING.

Seriously. Giving something away is better than having nothing. Even if it's glanced at and thrown away, you've given something.

As for the second part - what do I keep? Pens, lip gloss, screen cloths, keyboard brushes, nail files, some bookmarks.

Do they prompt me to buy books?

Nope.

As a reader, I'm quite sure there are two incentives that prompt me to click the buy button on a new-to-me author: premise and reader recommendation. The lip balms, handy doodads and shiny sundries? Sure, I keep them. Maybe I occasionally note a name. Mostly I use them without another thought.

I think too much concern is placed on the question of What We Keep. The magic moment is in the giving. The special zing of a fun gift, freely given. The attention of the moment. Like the hand clasp or hug of greeting. Here and gone. An introduction. A hello.

That's why I go for the pretty, the fun, the shiny. Like a sweet treat, it gives a moment of pleasure.

A book is forever. 

Swag the Dog

by Allison Pang

Unlike some of my fellow word-whores, I'm not at RWA this year...but that doesn't mean I don't have some cons coming up.

And cons mean swag - both the giving and the getting.

 Books. Pens. Stickers. Trading Cards. Rubber boobies. Handcuffs. Condoms. You name it, I've probably seen it given away either on author tables or goody bags or publisher parties.

At a convention, you've only got a few seconds of time to try to catch a reader's eye  - and you're competing with everyone else's chip clips, magnets, candy and bookplates.

You get the picture.

So I guess the real question is, does swag do anything for making books more visible to the readers? 

And the answer is? I don't know. Most of us try to balance our swag between what we can afford vs what will reach the most number of people. I like bookmarks and flat things, simply because they're easy to send in an envelope, but the truth of it is that there's probably no correlation between what I spend on swag and magazine ads and my book sales. It's already a given that I'll most likely never make that money back in sales.

Add that to the fact that some conventions are actually banning the use of paper swag and the picture starts to get a bit more convoluted. (My understanding is that a lot of the paper stuff gets thrown away - convention peeps are tired of  dealing with tables of left overs - so they only want "high quality" swag these days.)

But to be honest - I've never bought a book off of swag. Ever.

Most of what I get a con is dumped in the trash or given to my kids, never to be seen again. (Unless it's something really clever.)

So for my own swag items, I tend to stick with fewer types, but hopefully higher quality stuff - my trading cards, for example. They're all hand-drawn by Darchala (who does nearly all my website graphics. And additional artwork --> the snowflake design is going to be this year's Xmas cards, for example)

The downside to this is that it costs me a *lot* more than just printing costs. I can easily drop about $200 for a good piece of artwork alone (and part of that is for the rights to print it up). But it's worth it to me, because  I adore Dar's art.

On the other hand? I don't just leave my trading cards in piles on tables at cons, either. They are exclusively given away during my signings, from me personally, or if people want, they can send me a SASE.

This is partially because it's really too expensive for me to just waste them by tossing them on a table (street teams are an exception here - I do have a few people that I send swag to and they are awesome and hand it out or put it on shelves at the local bookstores.). But it's also because things have value when we treat them as *having* value. I'm not saying my trading cards are collectibles, per se...but by making them a little harder to get, hopefully readers will weigh their value a little more. If I can get readers to fall in love with the characters in this fashion, maybe that translates into book sales.

I realize I'm probably doing the swag thing wrong. After all, the idea is to get your books noticed and out there, and I seem to be doing the opposite of that. (Though I certainly hand out bookmarks as much as I can.)

But honestly? I just like illustrative art -  so I make swag based off of it.