I heard a factoid at the recent Decatur Book Festival that over 800 books are launching each day.

Yikes.

That means when it comes to launching our own book, including creative book announcements, we’d all better be thinking about how we’re going to stand out in that ever-growing crowd of book launches.

The other day I received a book from Canadian-based author John Tammela. Around the book jacket was wrapped a printed sheet, fastened to the book with a simple rubber band.

It wasn’t the usual “Here’s a copy of my book” message or cover letter, and I eased the sheet from the book to get a better look:

Must say, I grinned from ear to ear. Loved the bits about the weight and visiting hours. Clever, clever.

First, for any of us who’ve birthed a bouncing baby book, we can appreciate the sentiment. But more than that, this one, tiny flyer made all the difference between this book just landing in a pile of unread books, vs. standing out as something I should take a look at now, because the author obviously has some creativity (and a sense of humor).

Bookmarks are great, and useful (and wish I’d been collecting ’em all these years because I could make one impressive mural out of them all). But they’ve definitely become, like business cards, just one more common bit of printed collateral, and no longer what’s going to set you apart (unless, I suppose, if your bookmark could fly or make really cool sound effects).

This one, inexpensive, home-printed flyer shows us that our book announcement idea doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to work. And by “work” I mean giving your book that little extra punch, along with all those other punches you’re throwing with your blog posts, your launch party, your social media and your book signings, to make sure your book is a box office knockout!

Sharing time: Show us your book announcement, either with your comment below, or at our Facebook Page  or on Twitter @WhereWritersWin – We want to see more fun ideas our creative author tribe has used!