Selling Your Books Via Bookmarks

Most "Sell Your Book" seminar speakers advise, "Have bizcards printed." That's sensible. But then they suggest printing a couple of thousand bookmarks, too. They should match the cover of the book you're promoting. Carry them, give them away.

Then, always, the speaker distributes (her; this is a women's thing) bookmarks to the audience. I mean, woot. I've never bought a book I've seen on a bookmark. Never got into the habit of bookmarks. I don't like how they feel. I leave books open, face down; or I dog-ear a page if the book is mine. People give promotional bookmarks as if this cheapest kind of freebie were a gift. Next time a bookmark is offered I will decline to see what happens.

But I just heard a bookmark strategy new to me -- Take Your Bookmarks to the Bookstore and Stick Them Into Books That Aren't Yours, But Are In the Same Genre. Logic: Reader of big author will buy book, find YOUR bookmark, & feel prodded to buy YOUR book. The chutzpah, logic, and business sense of this marketing move are beneath commentary.

Awesome Small-Press and Litmag Database

Wouldn't it be nice to know: How long you'll REALLY wait between a submission and acceptance? What percentage of mss. a publisher rejects? If they pay a little or a lot? The top 25 publishing venues with the largest percentage of acceptances?

Fiction writers and poets, genre and literary: Toss your Writers Market and search over 2100 mags and small publishers with Duotrope Digest's free database and reports. Search by genre, payscale, length of your work. . . receive guideline info, plus unique Better-Business-Bureau info (see example below), updated daily by writers just like you! Click on Duotrope's file tab "Curious?" for aggregate info such the top 25 venues with the quickest response times.

Example: I searched Genre>Literary; Media>Print. Below is part of the report for the litmag The Painted Bride Quarterly (chosen at random). Good Lord, expect to wait 242 days for an acceptance -- a ghastly wait that inspired 44 percent of the authors to withdraw their submissions after an average of 150 days.

Days Reported	8 | 191.7* | 474 (min | avg | max)
Responses	(51.9%)
Acceptances:	7.4% (242 days avg. per acceptance)
Rejections:	44.4% (210.5 days avg. per rejection) | 16.7% personal, 50% form, 33.3% unspecified
Rewrite Requests:	-
Non-Responses	(48.1%)
Assumed Rejections:	3.7% (364 days avg. per assumed rejection without response)
Author Withdrawals:	44.4% (151.8 days avg. per withdrawal by author)
Other Information
Most recent response reported was received on: 14 Apr 2008 Responses have been received for submissions sent as late as: 17 Sep 2007 (74.1% of the responses reported to us for this market have taken longer than 60 days.)