Match-BOOK-ed!
Are you a writer? Why not turn your book cover or covers into irresistible matchbook art?
A few years ago, I started seeing a cute item in gift shops around town: matchbooks designed to look like vintage book covers. Somehow two of these ended up in our house, lingering near our stash of candles in the living room. At $7 or $8 a pop, I hate to think we bought them. Maybe they were gifts.
But upon close inspection, I saw that they were handmade and thus theoretically makeable by, well, me. Specifically, I wanted to be able to make matchbooks featuring my books, and not John Steinbeck’s or Margaret Mitchell’s or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.
I tinkered around at the craft bench, and produced a few using my covers and a few covers of books written by my crime fiction writer friends.
I’m talking about about this today at SleuthSayers, the mystery blog, in a post entitled,
How to Turn Your Book Cover into Matchbox Art!
Admittedly, it’s a strange, crafty topic for a writer’s blog, but these days I’m really into all the ways writers can market their work. Here’s the gist of the article:
Now, yes, it is much simpler to print bookmarks, bookplates, and the like than it is to create handmade matchbox art. But the process is so straightforward (and cheap) that you could assembly-line the whole process, pressing the kids and grandkids into service, and whip up a sizable batch that will delight family members and others who have supported your books over the years. You could also surprise author friends with matchboxes featuring their books. These days people are over-wowed by handmade items.
Since matchbooks, printer paper, markers and glue are fairly inexpensive, it is worth pointing out that your labor is the major cost here. Time is definitely money. It will indeed take you some to produce enough of these items to make a difference and feel generous handing them out at conferences or book club visits. But because they are handmade, I could also see pricing them decently and offering them in your direct sales shop or etsy store. In retrospect, I rushed to judgment too quickly. Pricing these anywhere above $5 now makes sense to me.
I was proud that I could make these for myself. I’m sure any writers who find this post will feel the same way.
Thanks for stopping by! While you’re here, I hope you’ll check out my latest books.
