6 March 2003

Tools of the Trade: Creating a Marketing CD
By Kelley Eskridge
www.kelleyeskridge.com

Kelley Eskridge's short stories have established her as a distinctive voice in literary and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in the United States, Europe and Australia, alongside writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Jonathan Carroll, and Jonathan Lethem. Various stories have been finalists for the Nebula and James Tiptree Award, and she has won the Astraea Award. Her work has also been adapted for television. The New York Times Book Review called her first novel, Solitaire, (HarperCollins Eos, 2002), "a stylistic and psychological tour de force." The novel is also a finalist for the Nebula Award. Before the book was published, Kelley created a marketing CD for booksellers, reviewers and other media sorts. For more details on the origin of the CD see Kelley's interview in The Broadsheet, "Playing Nicely with the Business Kids: Kelley Eskridge on the Art of Marketing."

Visualize the CD as a web site. When you put it in your computer, your browser opens, and takes you to a home page, which provides navigation links to the rest of the content on the CD. When the user is connected to the Internet any "live" links will work. Use this capacity to give the user access to supporting information (for example, the SFWA website, or an online profile).

If you know nothing about web-site design, get a couple of "For Dummies" books from the library or talk with a friend who knows HTML. Your local college may offer a short community class in web design or HTML that can help you get started. Your goal is not to become a codeslinger, but to understand the basic concepts of web-site design.

If you've never built a web site or worked with a graphics program, this CD is not something you can throw together in a month. Plan ahead.

What You'll Need

Equipment (yours, or that of a patient friend)

• Computer with a CD-RW (CD Read/Write) drive
• DeskJet color printer
• Digital camera if you need to take an author photo
• Scanner to make digital images of your book cover (or get a JPG file from your publisher)
• Microphone and stand if you plan to record audio
• Video recorder if you plan to record video

Supplies (available at any office supply or online store, often in bulk at better prices)

• Blank recordable CDs (CD-R)
• CD labeling kit (usually includes a few labels, applicator, and label design software)
• Additional CD labels as needed
• CD storage envelopes (made of paper with a plasticine window in front. Jewel cases are too expensive and more difficult to mail).
• Information labels for the back of the envelope (3-1/3" x 4" is a good size)
• Printer ink cartridges

Software

• Windows Notepad or similar text editor
• Graphics program (Microsoft Paint is included with later versions of Windows and will work fine.)
• Photo editor program (Microsoft Photo Editor is included with later versions of Windows and will work fine.)
• Web browser program such as Internet Explorer or Netscape
• Audio recording/editing program such as Total Recorder, if needed
• Video editing program, if needed
• Not essential but strongly recommended: Web design program such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage

Design the CD

The CD is for media and booksellers — not readers, family, or the SFWA membership. It should:

• Look as though the publisher has developed it themselves because they are that jazzed about you and your book,
• Make it as easy as possible for a bookseller or reviewer to understand your book, and tell readers about it,
• Show an interviewer that you'll be a great subject.

Every piece of content should relate directly to the book or to you as a writer. A user should find everything she'd expect in a press kit, plus multimedia extras. (The CD is a multimedia tool, and there's not much point creating one if you don't take advantage of that flexibility.) Is your book serious? Hip? A bang-up adventure story? The CD gives you the chance to create a mood as well as present information.

A basic CD should include the following "web pages:"

• Home: Introductory text, book cover, author photo, publisher or imprint logo, publication date, ISBN, and links to remaining content.
• About the book: Text in the style of jacket copy (you may or may not have the actual copy yet), and a JPG file of the book cover.
• About the author: Author photo JPG, author biography, author bibliography with reference to awards and honors, and link to author website. If you have published other books, you can link to them on Amazon or B&N so that the CD user can easily learn more.
• Praise: Advance blurbs, or praise for you/your previous work (See Press Room alternative.)
• Interview: Write your own interview focused on the book. The interview should demonstrate that you can be an interesting subject, and "spin" the book to reviewers and booksellers. (See Press Room alternative.)
• Press Room: If you're an established author, you may want to consider this as an alternative to Praise and Interview pages. You would create a Press Room page with links that the user can click on to access a wealth of material, including selected reviews, previously published interviews or profiles, previous or future appearances (including a tour schedule, if you have one), etc. You should still include the self-interview about your book. (Thanks to Nicola Griffith for this idea).
• Links: Links to author web site, publisher web site, other web sites if relevant.
• Contacts: Email links to editor, publicity manager, agent, and author.
   
  and
• Autoplay: This is not a web page, but a file that tells the user's computer to automatically play the CD on the computer's default web browser.

The CD can also include any or all of the following extras:

• Welcome: A "welcome" or "splash" page that makes a visual impact and invites the user into the CD.
• Readings: Audio recording of you reading from the book, in WAV and MP3 formats (This will allow users to hear the readings on their computer speakers, or their car or home audio systems.)
• Video: Video clips of previous interviews or readings, or a self-interview on video.
• Read a Chapter: Chapter One from the book (beautifully formatted for reading on the screen, or perhaps in a PDF file).
• Coming Soon: A teaser of your next book, if it's from the same publisher. This could be jacket copy or a sample chapter.
• Graphics and Visuals: If you've got the skill, you can create animations that present content or guide the user; imaginative ancillary content (a blueprint of your hero's spaceship, or a beautifully-drawn map of the keep).
• And more: Use your imagination! Anything that helps to send the message about your book. Just remember that it must relate directly to the book, or you as a writer, and it has to be professional (look good, work well, and contain solid information). Resist the urge to include fluff: It will only diminish the clarity and impact of the CD.

Develop the Content

The first step is to create your text content. Consult with your editor to find out the emphasis of your book's marketing strategy, so your content will support those messages rather than work against them. Write your self-interview, jacket copy, bio, and bibliography. Decide what you will include in your Praise section or Press Room. Check the details: are the email addresses, phone numbers, ISBN and other information correct?

If you are planning audio or video content, decide what to include and write any explanatory text you need, but don't plunge into creating it yet. It's best to develop the CD with the important text information first, and then plug in these extras at the very end of the process. Audio and video can take a ridiculous amount of time — you should have your basic product ready to go so that you don't risk missing the marketing window just because of complications.

The next step is to make a map of your web site. This shows you the structure of your web site — how the pages are connected to each other, and where all each element of content will appear. Here's a map of the Solitaire CD.

Keep it simple. The home page should link to all other main pages, and the main pages should all link back to the home page. If you use sub-pages, (for example, in a Press Room set-up), then make sure your sub-pages include a link that takes you back to the main page.

Graphic Design and Visual Elements

Once you've written the text and developed your overall structure, you're ready to think about the "look" of the web site. Choose a basic theme (an overall color scheme and possibly one or two key visual elements) and stick with it. The goal is a consistent visual impression.

It's important to:

• Choose colors that show your book cover to the best advantage. This is the number one priority.
• Choose a basic font such as Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman that is easy to read and is recognized by all browsers.
• If you want, pick a key visual element to use as an "anchor" throughout the website. For example, I used a section of my book cover (the grey eyes, distorted by a photo editing program) as a background element in many of my pages.

You will need to prepare digital photo and image files, as well as any other graphic elements, using a graphics or photo-editing program. There are any number of these available. Windows XP includes Microsoft Photo Editor and Microsoft Paint, both of which are workable for your basic needs.

Build the CD

I didn't want to learn coding from the ground up, so I bought a web-site design program that allows me to design a web page without being an HTML expert. I use Macromedia Dreamweaver 4, which is an older version and is available at various online software dealers for $150 - $250. The current generation is Dreamweaver Mx, which retails for about $400. You can download a free 30-day trial of Dreamweaver Mx at www.macromedia.com. Microsoft offers a program called FrontPage that I have used but do not like. However, your mileage may vary.

These programs can be intimidating, but they come with tutorials and there are plenty of reference books available. I have basic desktop publishing skills (formatting a simple newsletter with columns, tables and image files in a Word document), and it took me about a month of reading and noodling with the program to feel ready to begin building the CD. There were also short classes ("Introduction to Dreamweaver" in 4-6 hours) available at several different community colleges in my area. A class like this is a great jumpstart.

Audio

This was by far the most fiddly and time-consuming part of the CD, but it's worth doing if you do it well. You will need to practice — a live audience filters out dropped words, smacking, and other extraneous noise, but recordings accentuate them. The good news is that thanks to some easy-to-use (and relatively inexpensive) audio programs, you can edit your sound files to make them sound better. These programs will allow you to make a mistake, stop, and pick up again (instead of having to go all the way back to the beginning). However, the editing process can be frustrating and time-consuming.

You will need a reasonable microphone, and I recommend a boom stand so that your hands are free and you have less tension in your body.

I recommend starting with Total Recorder Professional Edition V4.1 from High Criteria. Go to www.highcriteria.com and then click "Products". It's $36, and you can get a free trial download (fully functional but only allows you to record 40 seconds). The Professional Edition product includes editing capability. I used Total Recorder to record my audio, and a different program to edit, but next time I will try Professional Edition's editing function.

Video

I don't have any experience with computer video, but I assume that there are easy-to-use programs to edit and save video files just as there are for audio.

Testing and Anti-Virus

When your files are complete, make sure you test them extensively. Check all the links on your computer and on someone else's computer. Also make sure you scan every file with an anti-virus program.

Autoplay

This is a small command file that tells any Windows computer to open its browser and then go to a specific file on your CD (this could be the index/home page, or a welcome page). You create this file in Notepad or another basic text editor, and then copy it onto your CD.

1. Type the following text into Notepad (with line breaks as shown):

[AutoRun]
shellexecute=pagename (instead of pagename, type in your start page. It might be WELCOME.HTM, or INDEX.HTM)

2. Save the file as <autorun.inf>

Please note this autoplay file won't work on Mac computers, and I was not able to find a satisfactory autoplay file that would handle both systems.

Burn the CD

Write your files to a CD, including the autoplay file. Test the CD in several different computers to make sure everything's working right.

CD Label

There are many inexpensive kits specifically for creating CD labels (available in the labels department at any OfficeMax or Office Depot). Use your color theme or a portion of the book cover on the label, and make sure it includes the title, ISBN and publication date of the book; your name; and your publisher's name or logo.

Instruction Label

You will need some kind of label on the back of the envelope to help people understand how to use the CD in case the autoplay function doesn't work for them. I used 3-1/3" x 4" labels with the following text:

Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge
Promotional CD
- Best viewed in Internet Explorer
- Should autoplay in Windows systems
- To play manually, open CD and click on file "WELCOME.HTM"
- Audio files (MP3 and WAV extensions) can be played manually through any media player

Congratulations! You have a promotional CD.

(You can see most of Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire CD files online.)