Slave labor

aka making my kids earn their room & board.

Tonight I'm working on a mailing to go out to some booksellers. Part of the mailing is autographed bookmarks. No big deal just reading that comment...okay, let me put this into prospective...I have now autographed 14,000 bookmarks. OMG. Can you say Carpal Tunnel syndrome??? No, I didn't originally buy 14K bookmarks. I bought 10K and ran out! So I bought another 5 K thinking I'd never go through them and I'm almost out again! I can't believe how fast they're going. I recently recommended to a friend that she purchase 15K to begin with and she thought I was nuts. Got an email from her today and she told me I was right and she wished she'd bought more. It's a fairly inexpensive promo tool and has all the pertinent information about your book on it and it's easy to hand out to family, friends, & strangers...and oh yeah, booksellers.

I know not every author sends out bookmarks, but Jane Millionaire is my first book so I'm having fun with it and putting my kids to work in the process.

What work? Well, those 14K autographed bookmarks were put in stacks of 10 bookmarks and then rubberbanded. My kids have had a blast doing this. They build pyramids with the stacks, pretend they're warriors and goblins battling it out, and so forth (yes, my kids do have active imaginations). After I ran out of bookmarks the first time, my 3 youngest kept asking me if we needed to do bookmarks and could they help. My oldest hasn't ever gotten into it or else he just thinks it's a good time for him to be on the computer since I'm off. (he accuses me of being a computer hog--the nerve! )

Most of all, I think my kids enjoy it because it's time we spend together laughing and talking while I sign and they count, rubber-band and stack. It also makes them feel an important part of the whole process---which they are since they are my inspiration and greatest joy.