Last year I designed some badges to give away at my first Supanova and on the European Tour, and they were eagerly snapped up by fans. I also had some bookmarks made, but they weren’t so successful – something that I don’t think was completely due to the badges being more desirable. You see, the hard part of designing a single bookmark for myself is that it has to reflect several series of books, and in the end I opted for what was essentially a long business card with a list of my books on it. (And actually, the idea was I could fold them in half and they became business cards.)

Boooriiiing!

Retrospect is a wonderful thing. I can now see that, when you trade in words, words might be what best publicises your books. I chose quotes for those badges that might appeal to people even if they hadn’t read the books. Maybe if they liked the quote, they might try the book. The fun part of giving them away was that the three quotes were equally popular, and I enjoy seeing whether someone will be a Thief, Magician or On a Quest badge person.

Badges!

So I’ve taken the quote idea from the badges and designed bookmarks based on them. And added a fourth bookmark with a quote from the Black Magician Trilogy.

The new bookmarks

The new bookmarks will be a little extra bonus for anyone who comes to a signing. The old bookmarks? Well, they do make fantastic business cards, and I can still give them to people who want a list of the books I’ve written.