First, the totally self-serving announcement that my book is out today! Confessions of A Viscount should be on the shelves in a bookstore near you. If it’s not, please find a clerk and ask them to get it.
Mass-market paperbacks released in December have a spotty record. They often get overshadowed by holiday themed books, and many of our core customers sacrifice their monthly fix of romance fiction in favor of buying gifts for others.
To help overcome this deplorable self-sacrifice and increase my book’s visibility, I decided to follow Debbie Macomber’s example, and skipped the standard postcard announcing the book’s release in favor of sending a small gift to my readers. Debbie talks about creating community between readers and the author as well as the world her characters inhabit. I thought readers might enjoy an extended stay in my version of the Regency England community. To learn what my characters have been up to since they got their happy-ever-after, I created a mock newspaper to go with the two cards (my promo goodies).
I struggled to come up with a suitable name that wouldn’t infringe on any actual newspapers, and ended up giving it the name that I’d used to describe it — the London Gossip Rag. I had a great time revisiting characters and figuring out what they were up to now. There’s news and a gossip column and of course there are ads, including one from the Happy Jack Inn on the Dorset coast that insists rumors of smuggling in the area have been greatly exaggerated.
Debbie had 350 readers on her mailing list when she started, and I have almost 1200 readers and booksellers. In my other job I’ve done mailings to over 800 truck dealers, so how much harder could this be? Plus, I had my wonderfully supportive husband and mother to help with the actual folding and stuffing.
My mailing list came from about six sources. Yes, they were all in Excel, but they didn’t use the same layout. There were duplicates, and duds that came back from the last mailing. And then the actual mail merge to print the labels — something that seems simple but never works on the first try.
I wanted the newspaper to arrive the same time as the books would be in stores, so the clock was ticking. I’d re-ordered my tip cards and shopped for the supplies needed, and had everything ready to go by Tuesday afternoon. I was still cleaning up the list of booksellers, but printed the 350 reader labels and return address labels, and assembled my crew of volunteers.
Ignoring the fact that they referred to themselves as slave labor, I showed them how to efficiently label, stamp, stuff and seal the envelopes, and emphasized the importance of keeping them in order. You never know when you might have to find one in particular.
Finally, I succeeded in merging, formatting and proofreading the 850 bookstore labels and began printing. After only eight pages, my laser printer called it quits. The drum was done. Not to worry — I could print the remaining pages at work the next day and by this time the slaves were grumbling anyway, though Mom promised to return after breakfast.
My husband picked up the printed labels from my office and they continued stuffing and labeling through the afternoon. (Mom didn’t arrive until after two; she hadn’t said how long after breakfast.) There are 25 Romance Experts on my list who needed to receive extra cards for their readers groups. Rather than try to print those on their own sheet, I thought it would be simplest to just grab those envelopes from the stacks, since they’d still be in order. Right?
Thumbing through the stacks, Texas was followed by Michigan, part of California was in Ohio, and at least one envelope was addressed to me. Mike had a “system” for labeling the envelopes, and at one point he was working from two sheets of return address instead of one return and one ship-to. Luckily, Mom noticed this when he was only halfway through the sheet.
Since I hadn’t finished cleaning up the bookseller lists at that point, I hadn’t printed as many return address sheets as we ended up needing. And my laser printer had given up the ghost. My helpers were nearing the end of labels on hand and it was after six, the night before Thanksgiving.
No worry, I also have an inkjet printer! Whose ink is not waterproof, which is not good for mailing labels. But no worry, I have spray fixative! So all I had to do was run a sheet of labels out to the garage, spray it, run to the bathroom to blowdry it, then grab the next sheet of labels off the incredibly slow printer, start the next one, and run the labels to my slaves, er, helpers. In between each sheet, I’m still searching for the rest of those 25 Romance Experts.
Of course our neighborhood post office is closed by now, but the one at the airport is open until midnight. I figured we needed to get there by 10 in order for them to be on their way Wednesday night. (The postal clerks where I bought my stamps didn’t know the deadline, just like they couldn’t answer my question about label placement.)
Ignoring my inner perfectionist’s burning need to check every envelope and make sure no others were addressed to me, we loaded up the boxes of stuffed envelopes and made it to the airport post office by 9:15 … only to find out the cut-off for getting them out that night was 8:30. Based on the number of stamps used and labels printed, I estimate 20 envelopes are coming straight to me.
The project may have ended up being mailed two days later than I’d planned, but it least it came in on budget (except for 20 stamps).
So there you go, a glimpse into the glamorous life of an author. And here’s a peek at my living room, Tuesday evening.
When all was done and (almost) cleared away, Dakarai showed his appreciation for an empty envelope box.
PS: One more shameless plug — there’s a special prize for this week’s contest drawing. Details on my web site: www.ShirleyKarr.com
