So I get asked a lot about what kinds of promotion I think are effective. I’ve spoken here at length on things I think are INEFFECTIVE like the constant BUY MY BOOK spam at social networking sites or the signing up for newsletters without permission. But what works is often harder to figure out than what doesn’t.

However – recently the lovely folks at Carina Press made me some awesome postcards for my upcoming release of GODDESS WITH A BLADE:

As you can see it’s got the gorgeous cover on one side with a coolio tag line (yay for blurb writers!) and on the back it’s the blurb along with a 10% off coupon for books via the Carina site.

I LOVE THIS. First of all it combines promotion for the book effectively with promotion for the publisher. This is a difficult balance I think, but I’m glad it works so well. AND it tosses another reason to not only buy the book advertised on the postcard, but gives readers an added incentive to buy (not only that author, but others) with a nice coupon.

I think this is a great promotional idea! It’s not so much that great for mailing like a traditional postcard because the paper is thinner and has text on both sides, but it’s a great size for covers and blurbs – I had them at my table during the booksigning at RT and I when I mentioned that it had a coupon as well as my book info, they went even faster. People like this sort of thing (thank goodness) and I love it that I can get them interested in my book and others too via a coupon that’s handled in an attractive and easily used format.

Kudos to Carina Press! I love these to death.