Successful Advertising? Time Will Tell by Karla Stover

A Successful Advertising Ploy?  Time Will Tell

When I wrote Murder, When One Isn’t Enough, the title was going to be Tahuya Daze because the majority of the book takes place on Hood Canal, in or near the tiny town of Tahuya. BWL and I decided the name would be confusing to book buyers so I changed the title. But I wanted to make Hood Canal and Tahuya residents aware of the book so this is what I did.

1.      Had a blow-up copy of the cover made and laminated:                       cost appx. $2.00

2.      Bought a complimentary sheet of paper to mount it on:                      cost $1.10

3.      Bought a white Styrofoam backing board:                               cost $1.10

4.      Bought 2 four-foot stakes                                                        cost $1.43

5.      Bought lettering from a craft store:                                          cost appx $5.00.

I mounted the picture on the backing and that on the white board. At the top, using the sticky letters I wrote

AMAZON, Prime, kindle.

On the Saturday before the 4^th of July, this year on July 2^nd, Tahuya has a festival, so that morning my husband and I drove there taking the poster and stakes. We found a place along the road where the ground wasn’t too hard, pounded the stakes in, and stapled on the poster. Now, it remains to be seen if my strategy will work.

Since Tacoma has festivals and farmers’ markets practically, it occurred to me that I could do this at each one. I would just change the poster to read A Puget Sound mystery and mount pictures of the two covers.