I’m sure you’ve heard the term SWAG and loosely know what it means—cool stuff given away for free to promote something. People love free stuff, and it’s a great way to advertise your books and reward your current readers or future readers. So, SWAG works well with book promotions, but it must relate to your book somehow: the cover, characters in the book or the setting.
Here’s where the term SWAG originated:
The freebie swag, sometimes also spelled schwag, dates back to the 1960s and was used to describe promotional items.
When I first started my book business in 2014, I started with bookmarks for SWAG.
Bookmarks
A key SWAG item for authors is a bookmark, so I have created bookmarks for each book and given them away for free anywhere I can. I also include all of my bookmarks in any book order. I order them from overnightprints.com and have been happy with everyone. Most are two-sided which you pay extra for, but the newest one is only one-sided.
In 2020, I released the biography of the most famous square dance caller in the world, Marshall Flippo. I created a book pre-order system and had a monthly drawing for SWAG—items I purchased with his picture on them. Now that sounds expensive, but it wasn’t.
I have bought from each of these fantastic companies regularly for several years, so the SWAG for Flippo’s book promotions cost me nothing but the shipping. Weekly I get advertisement from them, and often they offered several items for free—my cost, the shipping. So, I waited until one company offered the suitable items for free and ordered them. I stockpiled several for the Zoom Launch Party and gave them as door prizes.
Look at a sampling of some I bought:
Samples
I also made book bags, spiral notebooks, and coffee mugs. The most popular were the deck of cards and the coasters. In reality, the choices are limitless. If you do not receive emails from these companies, sign up for one or the other (or both if you create photo gifts). You’ll probably need to buy something to receive the emails with the free promotions.
Ultimately, the recipient of the SWAG connects it to your book and might encourage a sale or two. That’s its main purpose: advertisement for your book.
What do you do for SWAG? Share your ideas in the Comment section below.
Visit my website to find out about my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? and my other five books and three cookbooks: https://laradasbooks.com
Are you wondering what I’m doing? Normally, I write my blog post weekly, but something changed this week. As of yesterday, I joined the “Ultimate Blog Challenge” and will post a blog every day in November—yes, daily! I plan the post to be shorter, and I have created an outline of my topics:
TOPICS
Week 1 – A variety of writing topics
Week 2 – Where my new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? came from
Week 3 – Gratitude topics for Thanksgiving week
Week 4 – Feature some of my poetry and future poetry books
Week 5 – Facing the end of 2021 & yet another crazy year
Blogging Technology Secret
I have a blogging/technology secret to share with you. Today I created drafts for all thirty blog posts with the social media button string in the post, using one of my favorite computer tools: copy and paste. I love having the social media string of icons at the bottom of each blog, but you have to recreate it each time you write a blog, and that can be tedious. So I came up with a solution. (I use wordpress.com.)
Wondering how I did it:
Create a new post.
Select “Social Icons” from the block menu.
Click plus to add one.
In the search menu, type the social media site name, like Facebook.
Then, in the little window, type in your URL address for your page.
Click the plus and add the rest of your social media sites.
Save this as a file named, “Social media icons” as a draft.
Create a new post for your current blog post, name it and save it.
Go back to the draft of “Social media icons.”
Go up to the top of the window and to the right where you see three dots and click.
Select “Copy All Content” midway down the menu. It will say on the bottom left side, “All content copied.”
Go back to the current blog post and put cursor in a block, and paste! Voile!
I love sharing technology shortcuts because computers should make our lives easier, right? Wondering about anything to do with technology or blogging? Leave a comment and I’ll help if I can!
Not really! A vampiress and an alien became the subject of two writing practices in my writing practice group a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Halloween. I had so much fun with the topics (everyone in the group wrote wildly humorous pieces); I decided to share them with you. To enliven them a bit, I’ve doctored them up just a little!
Enjoy!
Vampiress
A Vampiress: First Halloween Writing Practice Prompt
For my first ten-minute writing practice, our leader assigned me the following three items: a bakery, banana bread and a vampiress.
Halloween finally arrived! My lips crave your gorgeous neck, but I have to control myself. I move around behind the display case at our family bakery, Delicacies from Transylvania. We specialize in all kinds of exotic breads and pastries, but what’s surprising today is this handsome man-creature wants plain ole banana bread.
Delicacies from Transylvania
I catch my reflection in the window and gasp at my pale coloring. Forgetting my bloodless appearance, I forgot to put on enough rouge to rosy up my cheeks. I have to stop licking my lips, too—it causes my fangs to grow!
As our eyes meet over the bread display, I’m having trouble controlling my cravings. We exchange casual words, but I feel a mutual attraction. We continue our nonsensical back and forth. I see him scan my left hand and ring finger. In its absence, he asks me, “How about dinner tonight?”
My heart jumps in my chest—I can almost feel my fangs growing, so I cover my mouth with a pasty hand and fake a cough. I nod my head yes. After settling down some, I turn back to face him and say quietly, “I have to work until 11:00 PM here because I’m one of the bakers. Can we meet then?”
He chuckles and replies, “A late night get-together—how romantic! Yes, I’ll come by and get you.”
“That works because I live downstairs.”
Banana Bread
As he walked out with the banana bread in hand, he looked back over his shoulder with a knowing glance, like he was as excited as I was with our late-night rendezvous.
The rest of the long day went by uneventfully. I baked until 10:00 PM, then raced downstairs to shower. After a speedy spitz, I put on my best red, shiny, sexy gown, red lipstick and black eyeliner. I survey myself in the mirror, more than satisfied with my appealing results.
At 11:00 PM, the door to the bakery opened, and he walked in with white roses—how did he know those are my favorite!
He took my hand in his and reached over for a kiss. Before I knew it, my fangs came out, and his neck became my destination, and I savored his delicious blood! What a start to the night for this precocious vampiress! Now pizza!
Vampiress
An Alien
An Alien: Second Halloween Writing Practice Prompt
For my second ten-minute writing practice, our leader assigned me the following three items: a beach, poppy seed muffin, and an alien.
I’ve never seen a beach before, but those earthlings seem enthralled with it. That wet stuff moving along the edge of the gritty stuff called “sand” is “water,” or they call it, “Ocean.” How crazy is that! On my planet, “ocean” is a dirty word. My pals back home would be howling.
In our world, our law enforcers have outlawed water because wet stuff deteriorates everything it comes into contact with. In fact, I saw a friend of mine dissolve right before my eyes when he accidentally spilled some on his appendage.
Even though I’m still fascinated. That big orange thing hanging over the edge of the water we see often at home, but when we see it, it’s cold, not warm like it is here on Earth. What a difference our two planets have. In my earthly travels, I’ve learned some words, and it seems they call it the sun, but at home we call it “boomerang.”
I’ve disguised my skinny body today to look like an earthling beach bum with a wide-brim floppy hat and dark sunglasses, so I could walk along the beach with these earth people. So many shapes and sizes amaze me. Some of them don two pieces of clothing but very skimpy to cover their bodies. Those have two bumps on the top they try to cover, but it’s questionable, and the bottom barely covers anything. The others wear only one piece to cover their lower part, and they have hair growing where the others have those two bumps that vary in size. Strange attributes for each.
I see a group sitting down near the water but not in it. My curiosity gets the best of me, so I sit on the edge of the group, making sure I’m not near the water.
Poppy Seed Muffin
They’re putting a round piece of something crumbly into the hole in the top part of their bodies, right under a part that sticks out some. They’re making cheerful sounds and saying, “Delicious poppy seed muffins.”
As I watch, the part they put in disappears, and they then take more and put that into that hole. Its holding capacity seems bottomless because they keep adding more.
One of them realized I was watching and asked me something—I’m not fluent in earthling language yet, so I shook my head up and down which on our planet means “No.”
The person jumped up and gave me one of the “poppy seed muffins.” I followed their lead and put it in the hole under the sticky-out part. Suddenly, the flavor exploded in my mouth! How delicious! But back home, this would be sinful—that much pleasure! What was I to do?
I sat, mouth full of the piece—I did not know what to do. I watched more closely and saw them swallow, so I tried it and almost gagged! Aliens can’t eat food from this planet. What to do now?
I zapped myself over to New York City to avoid swallowing that gooey stuff and embarrassing myself. Let’s see what’s going on here!
A vampiress and an alien—two Halloween characters to enliven your day! I hope you enjoyed my playfulness with a couple of Halloween prompts. What do you think? Do you like to tell Halloween stories? (Scroll down below to make a ghoulish comment!)
Writer/Author, promoter—roles I have to play as I self-publish yet another book! But which am I? As I pondered each one of these, I wondered, “can I do it all?”
Just last week, I released my current book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better?—my sixth book. Several blog posts I wrote last year during the pandemic inspired this book. I had originally planned to just publish the posts with no revisions, but my editor said I couldn’t do that—that people wouldn’t buy what I gave away free. So, with her help, I enlarged the chapters, added a quote at the beginning of each chapter and sprinkled relevant photos throughout the book, and now it’s done.
As my promotional list grew and grew for my new book that faces a controversial topic, I wondered about each role and how I’ve learned to do each.
Yes, I am a writer and an author. In fact, that’s my favorite part of the process. Each book I’ve written has offered me a delightful experience in the writing process.
I wrote the poetry and prose in This Tumbleweed Landedwhen I took part in the Rio Grande Writing Project in 1992, and I put it aside for twenty-one years. Often it spoke to me from its secluded place, but I was too busy living to do anything with it. Then I retired after Mom died, and I had plenty of time to dust it off and work on it. Originally, I wanted the book to be short poetry vignettes about the people, places and activities in my small country town, but after attending a writing workshop in December 2013, I added prose I had written about my country life that enhanced the book. In 2014, I received the boxes of my books. I will never forget opening the box of books and seeing my words in print for the first time—unimaginable!
I wrote When Will Papa Get Home? years ago, when the creatives juices flowed like never before and have never after. On a visit home to our family ranch, I found a blue marble at the Philly Place, an old homestead, and I wondered whose it was. As a teacher, I was on summer break and I had brought a clunky Apple 2E computer home to use. I went home to Denver, and wrote day and night, consumed with the story, letting it unravel as it would. I did not know the ending.
Again, I put this one away for twenty or more years. When I finally pulled it out and revised it, it needed more “meat.” I totally enjoyed researching homesteading in Colorado in the early part of the 20th century and details about life then. The creative process took over again, and I got lost in the words, the revisions, the possibilities, and I saw it in print in 2015.
It took me four years finally to write A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir. Mom died in 2013, and I published this book in 2017. I turned to poetry to deal with my grief, so I filled this book with reflective poetry and prose about both of my parents’ deaths. It deeply healed my heart.
In 2017, I started the biggest writing project of my life—Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized biography of Marshall Flippo, the most famous square dance caller in the world. I recorded forty hours of interviews with Flippo. After transcribing those interviews, I faced 258,000 words, so I had the daunting task of cutting, cutting, cutting. I also had to do research and make sure his memories of World War II were factual, and they were!
Flippo wanted to tell stories about sixty plus callers and cuers he had worked with, so I added a chapter of favorite stories from callers and cuers about him. What a mammoth task this was, but I feel I created not only a wonderful biography but a history book about square dancing.
Even though I work across several genres, I love the writing piece! I’ve written and self-published six books now (that’s shocking to me) and three cookbooks. I took each project all the way through the process and actually published them, so that’s much more than being a writer or an author. Whew!
Now we come to the promoter’s part. I have been a promoter for years in the square and round dance world. Because of my computer skills, I’ve created hundreds of flyers, emails and events on Facebook. My love affair with Desktop Publishing goes way back—my masters’ degree is in technology, and that’s where I learned many of my computer skills preparing lesson worksheets and projects for my students. Early on I bought an education bundle of Adobe programs and became familiar with Photoshop and its capabilities.
Now, as I face the following list of promotions, I muse over what I have to do to advertise my new creation:
CREATIONS
Create iBook
Create Nook
Create Kobo
Create page on website
Add thumbnail to sidebar in website
Order proof copy from KDP
Order 25 paperbacks
PROMOTIONS
Create ad on Kobo for September 9 – 19, 2021 for Australia & New Zealand at discounted price
Create a new Kindle Countdown Deal – September 21 – 28 – 9:00 am, starting at $1.99
Yes, the promotional part of this job seems overwhelming. But after seven years, I’ve found the places I need to focus on. What’s time sensitive is that some of these tasks depend on the completion of one before the other. For example, I have created e-books at Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble, but I had trouble with the iBook e-book, and I need links to all four popular e-book formats for the BookBub ad.
Many years ago, I created my first e-book on iBook when I was a support staff for Albuquerque Public Schools. This time, it took hunting for the correct app to upload the file—I had an outdated one. Also, I had trouble with the app accepting my password for my Apple ID which was bizarre. I use that Apple ID all the time, but finally it accepted it. So, I’m waiting, but the minute I get the okay for my iBook, I’ll launch that ad on BookBub.
As I look to this next week, I will attack this list, promoting my new book as many ways as I can. Writer/author and promoter—I have to do all these jobs to make my book a success.
Do you struggle with writer/author and promoter roles? Do you like one of the roles over the other? (Scroll down below my promotions and make a comment.) I’d love to hear from you.
