If Toby the crow (from Decoding Dot Grey) was real, I'm certain this is how he'd walk. I could learn a thing or two from him.
It's almost time to launch Decoding Dot Grey. With Covid restrictions expected to loosen March 21st, one day before the official publishing date, there just might be a chance to do an in-person event. But there are no guarantees so I've been brainstorming about the best way to get the word out online.
The marketing for each book is a little different. For In the Wake I made a book trailer. It wasn't difficult to find appropriate stock footage and weave something together that had the right feel. Dot's world is much more ... specific. It's harder to find the mix of tragedy, quirk and humour to best represent the cast of characters and the settings. I thought about reading an excerpt of the book on video but I've been underwhelmed by my talking head in that format and I've read that I'm supposed to captivate an audience within seconds. Nope.
Then I thought about commissioning someone to design a short white board animation. This, I thought, might be pared down enough to get a sense of the book without putting images in the reader's head. I found someone to do the project but after an initial draft realized that it wasn't the right medium for a novel. The images were too detailed and cartoonish, making the story seem like a picture book rather than a novel, and that's not the age group of my reader.
So, I'm back to building something myself. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time digging for good images and footage. In the end, I'll likely put together a video of a minute to a minute and a half with some of the animal characters and setting, the text of the reading overlayed and my chipper voice doing a reading.
If only I could hire the strutting crow to do a book tour with me.
Have you come across any inspired book promotion ideas? I'd love to hear about them in the comments.
I think my favourite is for a picture book called Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem. Mac Barnett talks about it in the Ted Talk below. If you have seventeen minutes to spare, give it a watch. But, in case you don't, Billy Twitters receives a blue whale as punishment for not cleaning his bedroom. He has to clean and feed the whale and take it to school, lugging it along on his skateboard. The illustrations are all you could hope for in such as story. At the back of the book, inside the cover, are a number of silly ads. One contains a way to order your own blue whale. If you do you will receive, via snail mail, documentation from a Norwegian Law firm. It explains about the hold-up in customs and gives a phone number to reach the whale. Kids can call, listen to the outgoing message of whale song and leave a message. They do. And it's wonderful.
Anyway, it's such a playful way to reach the readers and I find it so delightful. I hope to find ways to do that for my readers in the coming years. Maybe not with a blue whale and a bogus law firm, but something that breaks the fourth wall.