Bookmarks make nice give-aways at conferences, school visits, bookseller locations and libraries. They can effectively market your book and create a memory for a child and for parents. The difficulty, in marketing a children's book, is to keep the needs of the child in the forefront. All too often, bookmarks are primarily used to advertise the Big Box store, the publishing company, or the online bookseller, and not necessarily the book.
When a major trade publisher is promoting a book, often times they will produce the marketing and promotional items. Smaller houses, educational houses, and independent presses may not have the budget to produce all types of promotional items, including bookmarks. The author, however, usually can use cover art (check your contract) on items such as postcards and bookmarks to promote the book.
In designing and producing your own bookmark, keep in mind the following:
1. It should be eye-catching. The best bookmarks are in color, or use b&w to great effect, have great graphics, and have a sense of movement; your eyes should move across the bookmark from side to side as well as from top to bottom. That means that there should be interesting things across the entire landscape of the bookmark.
2. It should have appeal to kids and adults. Kids should want the bookmark, and not simply because it's free. You will usually want to feature either the main character of the book or the book's cover on the bookmark so that you create a memory in the hands of the book-buyer, in hopes that they will make a point to seek out your book at the bookstore, or pick it up at a bookfair.
3. It should have "keepsake" appeal. This is the feeling that it's "too good to throw away." You want the child and the adult to want to keep the bookmark and use it, even if it is used in a different book.
4. It should communicate. The information the bookmark contains should include the book's title, the author, a sense of what the book is about, and how and where to buy the book.
5. It should promote something. You basically want to convey the message that "you need this book." Perhaps you want to call attention to the fact that the book is new ("Just Published,") or that is forthcoming ("Available Fall 2010,") or that it's popular (think Harry Potter.)
From a purely commercial viewpoint, you want the bookmark to help sell your book. However, you want to balance this with maintaining that sense of joy in the child. You don't want a child to feel any sense of obligation to shop. For a very young children's book, you may want to consider using a two-sided bookmark, one with child-friendly front. Marketing and how-to-purchase information can always go on the back. This gives you the option of displaying the marketing side at conferences or bookfairs, while still having a child-friendly giveaway for school visits.
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