I heart bookmarks

I know authors have varying opinions about bookmarks - whether they're a worthwhile investment or not. Personally, I LOVE them.

Here are just a few of the ways I've used them in the past:

A librarian was going to a conference and planned to book talk my book. She asked if I might send her 50 bookmarks to hand out to the attendees of the session. I was happy to do so.

An acquaintance of mine wrote to me and told me how a student in her daughter's English class mentioned my book as a favorite of hers. I asked her if I could send some signed bookmarks for her daughter to pass out to kids in the class. Apparently, they were a big hit.

Anytime I mail a book for a prize, I stick a few bookmarks in the envelope. Many bloggers love collecting swag to include in their prize packs, and I'm happy to send some along to them as well.

If a kid e-mails me, excited about an upcoming book, I'll ask her to get permission from a parent to give me her address, then I mail signed bookmarks for her and her friends.

I always get the bookmarks as soon as I have the cover, so I have a whole lot of months to be passing them out. Yesterday, my order arrived for my next YA novel, THE DAY BEFORE.

I think the designer did a great job. I recommend her and the company she works for ALL the time. She doesn't charge for putting the design together. All I have to do is send her what I want on the front as far as text goes, what I want on the back, and attach a high resolution jpg of the cover. She does the rest.

Their prices are pretty reasonable, I think. (You can go to the web site and see a chart of prices, depending on what you want on the front and on the back). Yes, it's cheapest if you design the bookmark yourself and send it out to be printed, but I don't know how to do that and frankly, don't want to spend the time. So it's worth it to me to just have Kelley do it for me!

The company I use is www.iconix.biz - kelley's e-mail address is kelley(at)iconix(dot)biz.

What about you - are you a fan of bookmarks?