On
Foiled and Promotional Pieces
When Mike sent me the above art for a
Foiled
promotional board game, "Candy Land, but evil," was the general office
verdict. (Not that the art is all that dark — it's just that the skulls
with bat wings give it this indescribable aura of menace that Candy
Land just doesn't have! Possibly 'Candy Land, but slightly evil'
would've been a better descriptor?)
One of the more interesting (and frustrating) parts of the marketing
M.O. is thinking up new ways to get peoples' attention. Why is it
necessary to think up new ways to get peoples' attention? Well, the
last UNESCO survey (2005) put the number of books published in the
United States per year at 172,000. That many books (assuming a standard
width of about half an inch) would make a stack about 7,166 feet high.
And you know what? There are some people who I send things to (think:
The New York Times, Barnes and Noble, etc.) who probably receive every single one of those books. 471 books a day.
Now, there are a number of things that First Second does as a matter
of course to get these peoples' attention. We consistently publish
great books that are well edited (yay Mark and Calista!) and well
designed (yay Colleen!). We work within the hierarchy of Macmillan (now
the #5 largest publisher in the US). We establish personal
relationships with the people whose attention we want.
But we're always looking for ways to go above and beyond those
basics. After all, we don't have the only excellent cover designer and
editors in the United States. And even if only a tenth of that daily
stack of books is worth looking at, that's still 47 books a day!
Therefore: the sublime and insidious tactic of the board game. I'm
not sure who came up with this idea (it might've been me, though if
anyone wants to call me on it, you're more than welcome), but I know the
reasoning behind it. Anyone who sees the art of this book (
you can read an excerpt here)
thinks that it is charming, adorable, and we thought: we have to get
this art in front of peoples' eyes — and not just in that daily stack
that arrives in the mail.
So Mike was kind and gracious and made for us a board game that's
based on the plot of the book (and, okay, a little on Candy Land, too).
And we've been sending it out to booksellers far and wide. (I think
Bergen Street Comics is actually going to organize a game-playing
session on FCBD, which is super-exciting! Possibly there will be a
follow-up post to this, with pictures.)
We'll see how well we do with this new attention getting tactic (#59328653: The Adorable Board Game).
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Đ/C: 46 Nguyễn Chí Thanh, Tp. Đà Nẵng
