{"id":1116,"date":"2011-06-05T14:15:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-05T21:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2012-08-31T13:13:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T20:13:30","slug":"getting-the-word-out-postcards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/05\/getting-the-word-out-postcards\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the Word Out – Postcards"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the recent Phoenix Comicon<\/a> I had the pleasure of attending several writing panel discussions. One in particular made me smile broadly when the subject of postcards came up. Gini Koch<\/a>, author of several books including \u201cAlien in the Family<\/a>\u201d and \u201cTouched by an Alien<\/a>\u201d said she recommended postcards for several reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a physical piece of mail. You put a stamp on it and send it and it makes its way through the mail system.\u201d Meaning many more people will see the postcard than the recipient. Make the front of the postcard eye-catching and people will take notice. While they may not read your message (that would be rude), they will see your design, and if that\u2019s the same as your book cover they will be more likely to remember that when they visit Amazon.com<\/a> or their local book store. \u201cEveryone knows me at my local post office,\u201d Gini continued. I like that idea.<\/p>\n

After the discussion I walked up to Gini wearing a broad smile on my face, postcard in hand at the ready. I’ve been doing postcards since I began trying to get the word out! She took one look, smiled, and said, \u201cI can tell you exactly what\u2019s wrong with yours.\u201d But\u2026but\u2026but. Actually, what she told me made a lot of sense and I\u2019ll be putting in a new order very soon.<\/p>\n

But where do you go for the postcards? I bought mine through Vistaprint.com<\/a> and they look very good featuring my proposed book cover on the front. I left mine blank on the back. Gini said was a mistake. I\u2019ll agree with her when my book is published and I\u2019m sending out canned promotional cards, but for now I\u2019m personalizing them individually. I don\u2019t want to send out the same message to everyone. For example, I just finished reading Sinn Fein<\/a> president Gerry Adams<\/a>\u2019 \u201cBefore the Dawn<\/a>\u201d and wanted to tell him that as well as the fact I was at boarding school in Northern Ireland<\/a> at the height of the troubles. None of that related to what I wanted to tell Richard Dreyfuss<\/a> or Oprah Winfrey<\/a>. You see why my cards are blank on the back.<\/p>\n

My first attempts to print the cards were moderately successful. The cards came out of my HP printer<\/a> legible but skewed a bit. Then disaster struck \u2013 when I tried to print on cards from the balance of the new order left over from the Phoenix Comicon, they jammed one after another. Turned out the new cards were on heavier stock. I tried sending them through my HP D7560<\/a> with the same result. When I tried my \u201cretired\u201d DJ5940<\/a>, the cards did not jam. I thought great and ran out to my nearest Walgreens<\/a> to get the ink cartridges renewed. Yeah, well, it seemed like it was going to work. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I then decided to chance using my wife\u2019s wide-format Epson \u2013 with her permission of course (actually I let her drive). Lo and behold, the postcard printed perfectly. Hoping it was more to do with the Epson\u2019s paper path (rear fed), I took a chance on the Epson NX420<\/a> on sale at Staples for $69.95. Bingo! The postcards print perfectly<\/strong>, and I\u2019m very pleased.<\/p>\n

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At the recent Phoenix Comicon I had the pleasure of attending several writing panel discussions. One in particular made me smile broadly when the subject of postcards came up. Gini Koch, author of several books including \u201cAlien in the Family\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writinghelp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1597,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}