Calling all Librarians... experienced authors ... experienced publishers....

[kinzel]

and anyone else with a clue about this stuff:


we just got off the phone with Stephe Pagel at Meisha Merlin, and we're informed that Meisha Merlin will be joining forces with Diamond Distribution.... at the annual ALA Conference... in Chicago in June. MM will have their full display booth, likely including art, for three days in the exhibit hall. Both Stephe, as Publisher, and Kevin, as Art Director, expect to be there.

Meisha Merlin has effectively zero experience at library convention and want to know what's the most useful or most effective thing they can have available to attendees, aside from, say, free books. They asked me, since I was a working librarian at several points in my checkered career. True... but I've never been to the ALA (sigh) and when I was acquiring I was usually acquiring material I already knew something about.

While MM may have a limited number of freebies... what they really want to do is have people stop by the Meisha Merlin booth and come away with what they need to make decisions to order books by Meisha Merlin's stable of writers .. including us.

One person has suggested pre-printed checklists -- book names followed by check-offs for age appropriateness, graphic sex, violence, etc... -- but that's an "I dunno" to me since what some people see as sweet-and-touching others see as rude or pornographic.

So, have any of you been to the ALA or similar events, and two, what do you think works? Pads with Meisha Merlin's basic info? Postcards of important books?

Please feel free to chime in, or to ask librarians you know...

Oh yeah, one more thing... we seem to be working on the just-in-time-delivery model once again. Crystal Soldier is scheduled to ship from the printers exactly one week before the time we expect to be arriving at Shevacon. Winter shipping, aaaiiieeee....

Comments

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I've never been to the ALA, but I was at BEA last year, which I gather is somewhat similar. The most popular things from the publisher (aside from books) were bottle-openers with the publisher's web address and logo, magnifying glasses with the same, and condom-pops (although that wouldn't work for your publisher). They also gave away lots of folders with information about the publisher and a catalog of titles in print. Other publishers seemed to be doing a brisk business giving away tote bags (especially the heavy ones with squared bases, that could hold books flat), posters, and buttons that lit up/blinked.

Just about everyone gave away pens. And candy. People took them, but did not seem to care about them. It was more of a hoarding instinct.

But having scheduled booksignings at the booth definitely created a steady flow of interest. Also, if you're having someone doing book signings who has multiple books in a series available, signing book #1 the first day, book #2 the second day, etc. will get more interest than signing all the books on all the days.