Whimsical Friday: Promoting with a twist.

What’s in an advertisement?  Plenty if you know what you’re doing. In order to draw the viewer to your product you need a catchy ad. Whether it’s funny, using a gimmick or sex, you want an ad that not only tells about the product, but interests the buyer to check it out. Businesses, especially larger ones hire marketing and design companies to help promote their product. They’re able to sink thousands of dollars on advertising. But what about the little guy? What about authors who don’t have a huge bank account? You do what you can with what you have.

Ebook authors have the vast internet to promote themselves. With so many authors out there doing the same thing, sharing their book covers, banners and so forth, is the reader really interested in your product? Some say yes, some say no. Some publishers and authors have taglines that come before the blurb. A quick line to tease the reader into what’s to come. For example, in promoting my first published book. Kidnapped, I used the tagline, Abduction with Seduction. It’s simple but that one line helped to sell my book. Buyers and readers commented on how much it enticed them to want to check my book out. Three simple words and my book sold like hotcake. For my second book, Secrets of the Dead, I used, Nothing Stays Buried Forever. Again, simple, but got the point across. Think of big companies like Nike. Three simple words made them billions. Just Do It!

You want something that will stick in the viewer/buyer/readers brain. Something about your product that sticks out among the vast amounts of products taking over.

Another way to get your work out there and noticed by more people is a catchy slogan that ties into your book. For example, for my Darkness series, I wanted to come up with something that would promote all 8 books rather than doing one for each individual book. I gave it some serious though. The books are about a city encased in darkness after a ritual to blot out the sun is invoked and allows vampires to take over the city.  I wanted something upbeat because it is a dark style of book, but it also has plenty of comedy. So I went with the comedic aspect. I wanted something to put on promotional items aside from the book covers. Face it, as beautiful as our covers are, sometimes they just don’t look right on a product, or people are reluctant to buy a coffee mug with simply a book cover on it or if that cover is erotic, they can’t take it to their work place.  Same thing goes for T-shirts. You want something flashy, something that doesn’t always have to be about that specific book, but rather something that tells about the style your write. So with my Darkness series, being a paranormal vampire genre, I went with, Save a Vampire. Donate Blood.

My latest project is for my Demon series. Again, since there is more than one book, I combined the two into one ad. Using the titles of both books, Awaken the Demon and Offer the Demon I made it look somewhat like a button with the titles curving around the demon in the center. Right now I have placed the logo on Track suits, hoodies and plan to do it for mugs as well. I'll let you all know if it amounts to sales. Again, it's simple, but it draws the eye and makes the reader curious as to what I'm promoting. Anyone wearing the track suit or hoodie is advertising for me. Where ever they go, they are taking my work with them. Someone wearing it on the bus, catches the eye of the person behind them. They're curious enough to write down the titles and the web address to check out at a later time. Or better yet, use their iphone or any other digital device to locate it.

I guess what I’m trying to get across here is for I’ve had great success with this simple ad, and it looks great on mugs, shirts, buttons and so forth. Now don’t forget to add your web address so people can find you. That is a must. You always need to draw the reader to you, to your product.

you to think outside the box. Do something quirky, something funny, something so eye catching that it sticks in the viewers mind and encourages them to seek out your product. Always try new things and never be afraid to experiment. A good way to avoid complete and utter disaster is to have someone check out your logo, tagline or ad before placing it all over the internet.

Below are some ads and billboards that draw the viewer to their product. Happy promoting one and all!