A Banner Day For Authors!

  

Authors who want to raise their profile, get attention, and sell books know that they need to market themselves daily. Sometimes they run out of ideas and energy. They fret about what they will post on social media and wonder if it is even worth it. Sometimes the best idea is a simple, honest, and obvious one.

Let me tell you a story.

As a diehard fan of the New York Mets, I used to look forward to going to Banner Day. They would play a doubleheader for the price of one. In between baseball games, thousands of fans would parade before judges on the very field my childhood heroes played on. They would quickly pass by the judges who decided which banners were the top ones.

Presumably, they decided based on artwork, the slogan, and the overall presentation. Many fans didn’t care if they had a winning banner. They wanted to show their support for their team and just get on the field.

One year, about 40 years ago, while in high school, I went with two friends, Karen Yee and Fred Cohen, to Banner Day. It was a long hour and twenty-minute subway ride to Shea Stadium from deep Brooklyn to Flushing, Queens. While on the train, we wondered what we could do for a banner.

We were not exactly prepared. No ideas. No supplies.

We then joked aloud that we just want to be on the field. But we needed a banner to gain entrance. We took a paper bag and ripped its sides. We took a black pen and wrote across it: “We just want to be on the field.”

That had to be the smallest, crappiest banner in the history of the traditional event. Three of us together held up this torn paper bag with small, barely legible writing, and lined up outside the outfield fence, waiting to make our way onto the field.

Others looked like they spent money and time to craft their banners. It was like handing in a poem on a post-it as your college thesis paper.

Let me tell you, not only did we get on the field, we made it into the televised broadcast of this spectacle. The great broadcaster and former Major Leaguer Tim McCarver read our banner over the air and chuckled in disbelief.

The moment ls memorialized on a VHS tape that Fred had recorded. We watched it over and over, laughing every time at the genius of simplicity.

I share this with you so that you can have your own “just-be-on-the-field” moment.

This does not excuse you from giving your best effort on a regular basis, but sometimes you just need to take the easy, lazy, simple, and less fancy route.

Sometimes, instead of dressing up, a well-fitting t-shirt and jeans will also get you through the door to the party.

Or a sign made out of a shredded  paper bag.  

 

Please Contact Me For Book PR Help

Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com He is available to help authors promote their story, sell their book, and grow their brand. He has over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres.

 

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About Brian Feinblum

Brian Feinblum should be followed on Twitter @theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2022. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This blog, with over 4,000 posts over the past decade, was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” For the past three decades, including 21 as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and two jobs at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Susan RoAne, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler. He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America, and has spoken at ASJA, IBPA, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. He has been featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald. For more information, please consult: linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.