About a year ago my friend Louis McIntosh sent me a poem he’d written about depression and hope called ‘The Black Dawg‘.
The poem really resonated with me and I immediately agreed to Louis’ suggestion that I illustrate it with a view to publishing the finished project as a picture book.
Louis and I have now reached the stage where we’re ready to do some combined market research and promotion prior to making the project ready to print and raising funds for self-publishing on Kickstarter.
To that end we made a promotional pack comprising three double sided flyers featuring excerpts of the text and illustrations.
We targeted interested parties such as mental health charities and people with first and second hand experience of depression and compiled a mailing list of those people who said they were happy to provide feedback. We’ve just sent each person (via snail mail) a promotional pack to share with their friends, family and colleagues.
The table laden with promotional flyers, stickers and envelopes ready to send
The introductory flyer (above) features the proposed book cover on one side and has an introduction to The Black Dawg poem and promo pack on the other.
(click on the images to enlarge them)
The second flyer (below) features the first double page on one side, I introduce myself on the reverse and talk about my motivation and inspiration for illustrating The Black Dawg.
Third flyer (below) features the penultimate double pages on one side; on the reverse Louis talks about his motivation and inspiration for writing The Black Dawg.
A big thank you to all those people who agreed to be on the mailing list, we really appreciate your support and are really looking forward to receiving your feedback.
The feedback we have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
If you’re not on the mailing list but would still like to send us feedback – please do! We’ll be delighted to hear from you… email us at kathryn.hockey.art@gmail.com or leave a reply below.
And please feel free to share with as many people as you’d like!