Thursday, June 2, 2016

Ugh.....Time to Start Marketing......

Well, it's now a little lest than 6 months until my new quilt book comes out sew -- you guessed it -- time to start marketing.



It's funny, you know, because the real work of writing a book doesn't even begin until after you're done with edits and revisions and projects.

MARKETING.


It's like a bad word, isn't it?  But, in order to get your product (in my case, book) out there in front of people, there's a lot to be done.

I thought I'd write this blog about some basic marketing ideas -- some I've used for previous books and others are new ones that I'm going to try out.

Traditional Marketing Techniques
  • book signings
  • trunk shows 
  • teaching classes
  • visiting quilt shops
  • sending out mailings to quilt shops
  • talking, talking, talking
  • book reviews in magazines
  • submitting projects/articles to magazines 
  • connecting with guilds, groups, and other organizations
  • Quilt Market/Schoolhouse Lecture

Social Media/Internet Marketing Technique
  • website
  • blog
  •  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
  • blog hops
  • guest blogger
  • host giveaways
  • contact bloggers and ask for book reviews
  • internet quilting radio shows
Well, this is a good start, but I bet I forgot some so I ma add more ideas at a later date.

Do you have any ideas to share?

Monday, May 23, 2016

YAY! It's Official -- My NEW BOOK is Out in November 2016

Just found out for sure this past week that my new book, I LOVE PRECUT QUILTS! will officially be out in November this year -- six months from now!  WHOAH!



I received the Fall 2016 C&T catalog and my book is in it!  Yippee!




I also found my book on Amazon for pre-order.  WOW!


Hopefully, I'll be headed to Fall Market in Houston this October.......

Monday, May 16, 2016

UFOs, WIPs, Leftovers.......and a Little Snow

For the last couple of weeks, I've felt sew free to create in my studio.  Wow!  For the last six-eight months, all of my work in my studio has been professionally driven, sew this is such a nice change of pace for me.

The first thing I created was a new messenger bag/purse for ME, which I already blogged about a couple weeks ago.  After that, I got down to the business of trying to clean up my studio a little bit.

I finally sorted through all of the leftover fabric from my new book.  Wow!  What a big pile of bits and pieces and odds and ends.  I sorted them out by project and happily found several piles that could become a quilt of some kind. 

As an aside here, my dear friend Melanie, challenges herself to use the leftovers from one project to create another project.  A Two-for-one, if you will.  Sew, thanks to Melanie's process, I'm inspired to do the same.

I started with a stack of almost 5'' squares leftover from one of the quilts in my new book.  I added more squares from my stash and a white solid.  And came up with a really cute little throw quilt.  Sweet and fun.

I've also been playing around with a stack of blue and cream batiks from a recent magazine project.  In keeping with Melanie's philosophy, I used the left overs to make a cool skinny table runner.  And I STILL have more of this collection leftover.  Hmm.  We'll see what else I can create.

Next I found three UFO's and WIP's that needed layered with batting and backing and machine quilted, including a split ninepatch throw I made a couple years ago, I think.

Here's what I accomplished in the last week or two:


Five quilts -- REALLY, FIVE QUILTS.  Yes, I know that they're on the small side, but that's FIVE quilts out of my to-do pile in my studio.  HURRAY!

And as a happy thought, several of these projects were original designs.  I'm thinking of submitting them to Cut Loose Press.  Yay!  I'll let you know how that goes.....

_______________________________________________________________________________

Okay, SNOW. 

Can I even say that word legally in the middle of May?

I live in northwestern Pennsylvania, okay, NOT the mountains in Colorado.  But yesterday, nature was laughing at us.  The trees are opening their leaves, flowers are blooms, people are beginning to plant their gardens and their fields.  You know, a pretty normal spring in NW PA.

Then yesterday happened.  May 15th.  The day of SNOW.  Sew weird.  Sew strange.  Seamingly impossible, but it happened.  Yesterday.  Here's the proof:





Happy April Fool's Day....on May 15th.  Hah!  Hah!  Mother Nature.



Tuesday, May 10, 2016

And the Winners Are......

WOW!  What a super fun Blog Hop, wouldn't you agree?  I had such a great time!

Thanks to everyone who participated AND stopped by my blog.  I hope that you'll stop back from time to time to see what quilt mischief I've gotten myself into (wink, wink).

I'm sew excited, too, because I gathered lots and lots of new ideas for future blog posts.  THANK YOU BUNCHES!

Okay, here are our Lucky Blog Hop Giveaway Winners:

Summer in Texas wins a copy of 100 Blocks vol. 13

Cecelia in Florida winds a copy of Orphan Block Quilts


AND I decided since sew many quilters visited and left messages that I'd give away a second copy of my book, Orphan Block Quilts.

So, our third winner is Jamie in New York.


Yay!  WAHOO!  Cool Beans!  Cue the confetti!  Let loose the balloons!  Let's blow our party horns!  Congratulations, winners!  Your prizes will be there soon!