Business Card Budget

A “must have” for every professional author is a business card with contact information. No one should ever wonder who you are or how to get in touch with you!

Minimal information on your business card includes:

• Your name
• Book title
• Email address
• Web page

Additionally, you may include the ISBN, a post office box, or FAX number for direct book sales. To avoid unexpected company, do not use your physical address on your business card.

The reverse side of your business card can be used for promotional ideas and other information. There is space for:
• Your photo
• Book cover
• Your 25 word pitch
• A tag line from your book
• List of your other books
• Social media links, ie, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,
• Code number for a discount if ordered directly from you

A low-budget idea is to rubber stamp a small picture that coincides with your story or your name on your card. Craft shops have hundreds of unique stamps with letters, numbers, symbols, plants, animals, smiley faces, etc.

Business cards will likely be the least expensive item in your marketing plan, but the most versatile. Keep them in your car, wallet, purse, briefcase, home, and office. Use several of them as bookmarks in each of your books.

Excerpted from: Publish, Write, Sell! Quick, Easy, Inexpensive Ideas for the Marketing Challenged 2^nd Edition by Valerie Allen

~ Valerie Allen ~

VAllenWriter@cs.com                                          ValerieAllenWriter.com

Facebook.com/Valerie.Allen.520

Amazon.com/Author/ValerieAllen

 Beyond the Inkblots: Confusion to Harmony

Write Publish Sell!

Summer School for Smarties

Bad Hair, Good Hat, New Friends

Sins of the Father

Suffer the Little Children

In Praise of Consumption ( Thursday's post)

Come listen to our sales pitch
It's made with you in mind
Watch all our pretty pictures
They flicker there on line      
Read all our clever posters
They're scattered in the mallways
See all our flashy billboards
That pass along the highways
Hear all the siren songs
That sing across the skyways
Yes, we’re coming straight to you 

From your cell phones too!

Now!   See what you don't have?
It’s right there on TV
A pretty thing, a shiny thing
A just can't do without thing
Exactly what you need
This perfect, just so thing
It's something that you've earned
That you really do deserve
It's guaranteed to please
And will make your life complete!

New toys will make you happy
You know that it’s quite true
Come try them now, come buy them now
That midnight sale is on right now
Come buy just one or two or maybe just a few
And then you’ll find another and another one too!

Oh!  You really are in luck
Just look at what's on sale
It comes in red or blue and a dozen other hues
There's sizes here for everyone
Large, medium and small and extra large ones too!

Do you have a life?  Buy a reason now to live
Do you have a soul?  Here's its purpose sure to give

Oh joy!    Imagine all those discounts!

 And look right here on line
 Be the first to buy
 Own this FDA approved 3D flat screen, wi fi
 Wide track, fuel injected
 Five bath, slim line, smells fine, top of the line
 Fully equipped, live in, country style
 Sports series, super-sized
 Battery powered  KAZOO!

And it's even got a Hemi too
Imagine all those rebates!

Now, exercise that plastic power
Add all those special coupons
That you’ve searched and found on Groupon
Use your super card
Just press those magic buttons
And poof!  It all belongs to you!  It's yours!

Oh!   Don't consider what’s to come
Or what the world may be
No need to see the future nor quantify the sum
Just think of now and all the shopping fun

It’s all right here. . .
Listen to our sales song
Buy it now before it's gone!

C  12/3/11
Sandy Hartman