The Undiscovered Country

Feeding My Fetish

I've noted before how much I love paper, pens and pencils.

Writing feeds that fetish because it requires many of all of the above. For good or ill, I haven't decided yet.

Taking breaks from writing by working on something completely different such as art or crafts can alleviate writer's block. Exercise helps some -- and good for you if it does, because I'm not one of those!

I gave my brain a writing break by designing my own pen and bookmarks. For the pen, I went through http://www.vistaprint.com . I used them, because I could design the graphics, not just pick a standard one and change the text. I also could order as little few as one. The only disadvantage is the cost. Designing and ordering five, with shipping included, cost me $30. Subsequent orders won't cost as much since I already paid the design upload charge.

That's $6 per pen. Considering I won't give away tons of them to start, the cost was worth it. They'll be used for my contest, and the higher quality the pen, the more the winners will appreciate them. If demand for pens increases, I will order cheaper pens in bulk.

I also designed and ordered bookmarks. You can see the design (front and back) at http://www.almarquardt.com/PDFs/Bookmark . I must admit I thought the bookmark turned out fabulous. If you don't agree, keep it to yourself, because I can't change it.

I used http://www.printplace.com to create those. For 250 bookmarks, printed on both sides, and including shipping, cost $67. To order more will again cost me less because the design is finished and uploaded.

Whew! Less than $100 total which was my limit for tangible marketing tools this first time around.

Even better, I now have more pens and paper to play with, and so, perhaps, will you.

Best of all, I accomplished three of my goals in one week, and that's a great feeling.