This is a guide on how to make promotional cards for the Local Authors boxes in cafés.
Get your cover image(s) into an A5 format image. You can tile more than one cover image if you want to have multiple books on one card. Here’s the two cover images for my novel “Algae” ready for printing in PNG format.
Print the duplicated image on an A4 page. You can get this done at places like Officeworks or do it yourself if you have a colour printer. You can print the front and back images on ordinary A4 paper and paste them to card if you prefer.
Compose a backing sheet with a blurb for the book, a search term that will bring your
book’s distribution site up on Google, and maybe a QR code if you like. You can add a
photo of you or whatever you like. The idea is to have something like the back cover of
your book. Format this as A4 landscape with two columns so that it will match the cover
image. This is the back side of the promotional card for “Finding The Path”. I had the images printed directly on A4 300 gsm card at Officeworks for the princely sum of $12.46 for seven ($0.89 each card).
Cut the card in half. You now have two A5 promotional cards. These will fit in the “Local Authors” boxes along with whatever books are in them.
I’ve found that the search term gives the best results. I get three pages on a Google search by using “Algae Jim Lemon”. Check out different search terms to get the best result for your book. If a customer of the cafe wants to find your book, they should be able to find it right away.
When you place the card in a box, just say you want to add your work to the box. Be nice to the cafe people. They’re doing this for nothing.
If you notice that the box is damaged or people have stuffed it with promotional material that is not about local authors, let me know at:
I’ll take care of it.
Thanks for your interest in Local Authors. You can also download this guide as a pdf here.