Trails End Quilters Book

A friend has been encouraging me to get more done with my Tales of the Trails End Quilters book.  I've been working on a cover design and have made up postcards using the cover illustration.  So I'm planning to use these to promote the book.

Next, I've been making an outline of who and what I want to include, along with photos of the quilters and their work when any of this is available.

Putting the book together will involve more research about the first quilter (my great grandmother, Mary Barker Coon).  I do have photos of her and my grandfather's description of her quilting in one of his journals. 

• Do I need drama? 
• Should this be mainly a book for my family heritage?
• Will other quilters be interested in reading it?
• Should I include patterns for some of the quilts described and pictured?

So many decisions to make in deciding what to include and what direction a book should take.

Postcards to Promote the Elm Creek Quilters and Trails End Quilters

I've used postcard promotion for a number of my books, including The Magic of Patchwork.  I sent out the postcards to announce the new release, even printing an order blank on the card. I've also had extra cards printed without order blanks and use them when I correspond with fans, family and friends.


However, I'm very impressed with the use of postcards to announce Jennifer Chiaverini's new Elm Creek Quilts novel, The Union Quilters. Jennifer mentioned on Facebook that she had 20 postcards and a Union Quilters' pin, to send to the first 100 people who responded with an e-mail. She would appreciate their distributing the cards, which announced her new book and listed her upcoming appearances.

I responded in time to receive the cards and have been handing them out to my daughter's quilt group, the local library and a local bookstore where I teach workshops. I'm also mailing them to friends who read the Elm Creek Quilts books and/or are involved in quilting.

I must think about utilzing postcard PR when I write my book about my Trails End Quilters' Heritage.  Perhaps it could be a book of tales of the quilters of various generations.

Do you have unique ways of using postcards to publicize your books?