Swag! Freebies! Goodies! What is wrong with me?

Jenn McKinlay

     Okay, I have a confession to make I love free stuff. I mean I really love free stuff, which is deeply at odds with my utter contempt for clutter. I swear it’s like I have split personalities about stuff. At a conference, I will vault over three other people and add a back handspring with a twist for a free pencil, but if the Hub or Hooligans leave their shoes in the middle of the floor, I will kick their shoes all the way to their bedrooms and if I’m really irritated, they will find them neatly tucked into their beds. Clutter makes me bonkers. Give me free stuff. These are my issues.

     Compounding my issues is the reality that I have developed a swag problem. It started so simply. “We’re going to make you a few bookmarks,” my publisher said. “Something you can hand out at conferences and signings.”

     That seemed smart. Then they offered to make postcards, too. Very nice. I felt like it was a sort of a business card for the books. I dutifully took them to events but then I noticed that other authors had even cooler stuff to hand out. Pens, sticky-notes, and sometimes key-chains, water bottles, and tote bags. In a blind panic of newbie authorness, I decided I had to up my game.

Because...TIARA!!!

     The darkness began with the book Sugar and Iced. Set against the backdrop of a beauty pageant, I thought it would be hilarious to offer up tiaras as a silly giveaway. Well, if the beauty pageant in the book was cut throat it was nothing compared to the rabid response I got from readers wanting to win a tiara. Seriously, bribes were involved! It just proves everyone wants a tiara, yes, even some dudes. I have to say, they were pretty sweet with real rhinestones on a metal base from a British import company and they only cost five bucks. After that, the madness snowballed into cupcake squishy balls, aprons, berets, library card swag, some of which was produced exclusively by the Poisoned Pen, you name it, we did it.

     I can hear you asking why even offer swag? Aren’t the books enough? I imagine every author has a different reason for offering bookmarks, bags, pens, or whatever. For me, I write several series so I’m promoting multiple stories, usually at the same time and this gives me a way to differentiate between them. For the current cupcake mystery out in April, I’m giving out measuring spoons. But then in May, I am debuting my first romantic comedy so it’s beach bags for everyone, okay, not everyone but the lucky ones who win a giveaway.

     Because naturally, as the swag mountain began to grow, my inner clutter hater reared her persnickety head, and I realized I needed to have structured giveaways to unload the loot.  So every Wednesday on my FB page, I have a giveaway of whatever crazy swag I have going, my book, or if I’ve signed with another author recently, their book. Why do giveaways? Well, mostly because in the beginning of my career I felt like every social media post was a pitch to buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. Bleh, I hated it! So, doing giveaways became a way of talking about the book or a friend’s book without talking about the book and it felt like an opportunity to say thank you to the readers, which, truly, I can never thank you all enough! So, here have a pen! LOL!

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So, Reds, tell me, do you like free stuff? Like a sweet Jungle Red Writers bookmark? What’s some of the best author swag you’ve seen? Readers leave a comment, telling us your preferred author swag (i.e. a book, a bag, a tiara, etc.) and be entered in a random drawing to win…well, free stuff! Because, of course, there's a giveaway!