6 Promotional Item Ideas For Your Book

Promotional items and giveaways are great ways to promote your book. If you can combine utility and cost effectiveness, you have a winner. That's one of the reasons why bookmarks are such a great and popular giveaway for authors. A bookmark has all of your books marketing info printed in color right on it: Your name, book title, pic of your cover, a blurb, and contact/purchase info. If you search the internet, you can find deals that make bookmarks very cost effective.

But let's go beyond bookmarks and look at some other promotional items you can use. Some of these things may be suitable to give out to everyone, others items only to people who purchase your book. Still others items may be suitable for special events like a singing. Just search the net for the best deal and then see if these items fit into your marketing budget.

1. Pens with your book info printed on them. What a neat idea to sign books and then give the pen you signed it with away to the purchaser. Pens are utilitarian and people tend to keep them. Every time they use the pen, they will see your book info on it. It can make a great prompt for someone to talk about your book to others.
   
2. T-shirts with your book title printed on it. If you are looking for a popular, yet relatively inexpensive door prize, it's hard to beat a T-shirt. If you take your time to design a quality one, you may have yourself a walking billboard for your book for years to come.
   
3. Trade show tote bags. Tote bags are popular items that you can get for under a $1.00. You can have your book title printed on the side of the bag. If you are at an event with many authors, chances are, people will appreciate a bag to hold their books in. How cool would it be to see walking billboards with your book title on it at an event like this.
   
4. Stadium cups with your book info printed on them. These stadium cups are the 22 oz plastic cups that you get when you go to a sporting event. Again, you combine utilitarian and economy for an item that people will use time after time, and each time, they will see your book info.
   
5. Simple paper fan on a Popsicle stick. These are the fans that people use to wave back and forth by their face to stay cool. You can find companies to print these up for you in color with your book title and contact info on them. These items have a short utilitarian life; they are usually discarded when the temperature get comfortable, but when they are needed, they can be the most popular item.
   
6. Custom printed M&Ms. Who doesn't like chocolate? Now you can order custom printed M&Ms directly from the company that makes the popular candy. You will be limited on what you can have printed, for obvious reasons, but a little creativity can go a long way. Fortunately for me, Samson Effect fits perfectly on these little treats. Recently, they even added the option to print a grey scale photo on the M&M. For more information, visit the My M&Ms's website.
   

There are a lot more, creative things out there for you to look at from balloons to party favors. With a little creativity combined with some time on your favorite search engine, you will find a wealth of ideas on how you can use promotional items to promote your book.

Tony Eldridge