Black Opal Books designed the bookmarks above for Ruined Days and I got 500 of them printed. About 450 of them went out to friends in five locations: Albuquerque, NM; Idaho Springs, CO; Seattle, WA; Nashville, TN; and Laguna Beach, CA. Should they accept the assignment, they'll drop bookmarks, strategically, all over hell and gone. Stuart, the CO agent will be travellng the states and Europe in the next few weeks, and no telling where those bookmarks will end up. He's crazy in a very good way, and a partner in Rival.com. The SoCal eminence, Kevin, had an agency in Long Beach for many years and is a legend out there. The NM personage, Kathleen, is no stranger to book marketing; her ex was a bestseller and they had an agency in L.A. The Seattle friend, Eric, is the west coast excec. CD for a huge agency. And, Sarah, the Nashville lady heads an agency office in music city for that same agency. A very colorful bunch. And I met them all through advertising. Oh, the stories. Over the years that business has been very good to me. It blessed me with these guys who are used to much more sophisticated tactics. I am looking forward to what happens.

The next wave of bookmarks are quite different. Designed by Ryan Simonet they have books on one side, all covers by his cohort, Ben Carmean. The other side bears an ad for my sculpture website, which also serves as my book website. These will be dropped by small planes all over Tulsa, Oklahoma. When I was a kid there, I saw such a thing--leaflets for a new filling station. I ran through fields and back yards and knee deep creeks to get these fluttering circulars. Don't ask why--they all said the same thing. They came from the sky I guess is why. And I was a very bored kid.

Well, the littering laws may be different these days. Maybe not planes. And maybe not Tulsa. Perhaps they'll go under windshield wipers and into books at bookstores before they kick me out. But they will turn up. Watch the skies.

And, as the copy on them says, if you use one to mark your place in a book of mine, I will thank you over and over. Love, G.