Part of my month-long writing-free vacation was spent with these lovelies.* Like I did with May B., I collected addresses in dribs and drabs over the last year, waiting until I had a stretch of time to devote to stamping, labeling, and writing.
On 699 postcards. For real.
While it isn’t the 1,662 I sent out for May B., it was still a pretty big commitment, one that I found surprisingly satisfying.
You’ve probably heard the rate of return on direct mailings falls somewhere between 1/2 and 2 percent. Pretty dismal and probably not worth the effort, right? For me, the process has become a ritual where I can exert the tiniest bit of control over the unwieldy and unpredictable experience of releasing a book into the world.
Because the books I write are largely sold to the school and library market, that’s where I focus. I had graphic designer Sierra Fong create two postcards for my mailings this time around, one meant to introduce Over in the Wetlands to the schools and libraries of the Gulf Coast, and another to share both Wetlands and Blue Birds with New Mexico schools and libraries.
Here’s what’s happened since the postcards went out: I have had a handful of teachers email me after receiving the card. My sales for both of these books have increased slightly in the last few weeks.** I’ve gotten more website hits from the areas I’ve targeted. And I’ve been invited to speak at Mosquero Elementary School, a K-6 school of 22 students in Mosquero, NM (population 93). Seeing young readers in corners of my state I’ve never visited is pretty much the best thing out there.
While I’ll never know the actual results of the mailing, every postcard was a chance to directly tell a teacher or librarian about something I believe in, and in this age of quick and impersonal blasts of information, it felt significant, important even. However small the return, my efforts to match books with readers has left a mark, perhaps in ways I’ll never know.
Which is exactly how this publication thing works, anyway.
*Points to the person who catches the typo. My son spotted it immediately!
**Penguin Random House has a website called Author Portal where sales can be tracked, using numbers from Nieslen BookScan. Many, many bookstores don’t report sales, and few, if any, schools or libraries do. Until statements come in months from now, it’s really impossible to know true numbers, but the BookScan stats are a start.
Hi, Caroline, I love that you do this since I share your love for postcards and postal mail. I appreciate your sharing your process and initial results with us too. Cool! Congratulations and keep on!
Sylvia
Love the personal touch. You and Janet do a variation of this for the Poetry Friday Anthologies, right?
I love it. We still use our bookmarks all the time!
Sarah M
Thank you for telling me this! I spent a part of yesterday afternoon signing a pile of Wetlands bookmarks.
I sent out postcards for Surviving Bear Island and also got a request for a school visit as a result. It is pretty satisfying to put them in the mail.
It’s that personal touch, isn’t it? So much is out of our hands. It feels good to do something that feels like it might connect a book with potential readers.
It makes me happy to see authors still doing some things the old-fashioned way. Even if the results are negligible by monetary standards, the personal connection is something that “pays off” in a far realer, though less tangible, way!
I’d like to think so!
Caroline, you’re an inspiration!
Right back at ya!
My poor tired eyes didn’t spot a typo, but I did spot a nice little calendar.
🙂
Also, I love the postcards.
Love that little calendar!
The typo is Bluebirds instead of Blue Birds…though technically, bluebirds is how you spell the type of bird in the story (eastern bluebird). But this is before its English name. The girls refer to it as a blue bird. Confused? 🙂
I found this quite helpful. Thanks for sharing your process.
Happy to do it!
This is such an elegant form of marketing because it includes a personal touch. I’ve always appreciated pieces of marketing that I can hold — it’s too easy to check a box and click “delete” in email marketing (not that eblasts aren’t useful in their own way …). Still, postcards and bookmarks and pens and Post-Its are some of my favorite pieces of marketing to receive.
Thanks for sharing — I may have to hijack your idea and use it for myself in the future!
Agreed. It takes a bit of extra thought and effort, and I have to believe that somehow, someway there is a connection made.