I'm in New York for four days, motivated by our book party tomorrow night. I lived here for many years, until family obligations took me back to California. You know, you can live without something and not know how much you miss it until you get it back and then have it taken away again. That's the way being in New York is for me.
Haven't done too much Gingerish so far. Oh, yeah. I've walked around. Gingers are in the minority here so I've turned heads. I take the turning as a compliment. When I do see other Gingers I want to reach out to them with my arms wide open and yell, "Compadre!" I don't of course. There are enough crazy people on the streets of New York already. But it is visual how few G-people there are in New York compared to SF--and I am staying in the East 50s where there are multiple Irish pubs. Whole blocks of bartenders who know how to pour a Guinness but not a lot of redheads walking around.
There has been one other exceptional experience. I had breakfast with my friends Greg Newton and Donnie Jochum in Soho at Brown Cafe and the place was full of Gingers. For starters, all three of us were/are Gingers and our peeps kept pouring into the place. I am going to suggest they change the name to Rouge.
Greg and Donnie have opened the new Queer bookstore in Manhattan, BGSQD, 27 Orchard (between Canal and Hester) in Soho. Right now it's a pop-up for two months but, with a little help from their friends, they want to rent space nearby. I will let you know when I get info on their venture capital campaign. There are so few Queer bookstores any more, they deserve our support. Plus, they want to do more than be a bookstore. They want to be a Queer hangout, a safe place for Queer kids, Queers with kids of their own, and the unattached. What better way to hook up than over good books? Cool tshirts too. Back in SF I'll take a pic of myself so you can see. Preview: it's orange, which btw is a Ginger color.
Good news!: BGSQD will stock Ginger Snaps: Photos & Stories. Rush on down and buy a copy!
Here's a bit of nonGinger good news too. I have another book partner. Michael Broderick, an excellent Gay line artist, has agreed to collaborate: his drawings and the stories they tell me. EXCITED!! Of course now I have three book projects and a new blog to start in January but, dudes and dudettes I am up for it all and you know I will make sure there are some Gingers in my stories. Check out Michael's work on www.hottlead.com. His current book is G Is for Groundskeeper, an alphabet book like you've never seen before.
Tuesday, I'll be back in SF and will let you know how our Nueva York book party went. I bought the prizes for the game. Next: think of the game.
Check out our Ginger stuff:
Preview our book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527
Buy your ginger or gingerphile tshirt at http://gingergingerphiletee.logosoftwear.com
Showing posts with label t-shirts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label t-shirts. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Setting Up Shop
Merchandising is not a dirty word. It means selling stuff and, if you're going to publish a book, you might as well try to make money on it. You can sell more books if you bundle related products with it.
I didn't think of this for our book until I went to a book signing for a Guide for the Modern Bear a field guide to Gay hairy men. If you're a Gay man, you know from bears; they are the thing right now. (I'm hoping we Gingers will be the next thing.) At their event they had books and tshirts for sale. I bought both. The tshirt has a drawing from their book: a muscle bear in Jockey briefs. Got me two date offers.
So I suggested to David we have tshirts. He brought up the fact that our Ginger market was limited (only 2% of the human species). What about the other 98%? I came up with--tah dah!--the gingerphile tee. So if you like gingers or are one, we got you covered--literally.
I went to Cafe Press, an online design and sales site I'd used before, and designed our tshirts. They have a store option but I didn't set one up immediately. When you self publish, you dance as fast as you can, i.e., there are more good ideas than you have time and energy to pursue. I designed and ordered the tshirts, dude. Give me a break. However, recently Logosportswear, which is the actual source of our tshirts sent me an email mentioning setting up a store with them. I thought: why not? Maybe I'd been drinking.
Set up was pretty easy though and now we gots a Ginger & Gingerphile Store online. The good thing about this is that tshirts are cheaper so people who aren't sure they want to buy a $25 full color book are more open to buying a $15 tshirt. (Those are event prices: we pass along our discount.) And then they say what the hell and buy the book too. We wear the shirts at events so they have to stare at them for an hour. That might lead to sales. Also, the shirts are RED, which is a motivating color. Ask any bull.
It doesn't have to be tshirts. The Modern Bear boys have dog tags and other products. David is going to sell prints and cards of the book photos. Someone said we should do a calendar since we have 13 images, one for the front and one for each month. A little late to get going on it now but a good idea for 2014 maybe.
For now, check out the Ginger stuff we do have:
Ginger Snaps: the Book http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527
Ginger & Gingerphile tshirts http://gingergingerphiletee.logosoftwear.com
I didn't think of this for our book until I went to a book signing for a Guide for the Modern Bear a field guide to Gay hairy men. If you're a Gay man, you know from bears; they are the thing right now. (I'm hoping we Gingers will be the next thing.) At their event they had books and tshirts for sale. I bought both. The tshirt has a drawing from their book: a muscle bear in Jockey briefs. Got me two date offers.
So I suggested to David we have tshirts. He brought up the fact that our Ginger market was limited (only 2% of the human species). What about the other 98%? I came up with--tah dah!--the gingerphile tee. So if you like gingers or are one, we got you covered--literally.
I went to Cafe Press, an online design and sales site I'd used before, and designed our tshirts. They have a store option but I didn't set one up immediately. When you self publish, you dance as fast as you can, i.e., there are more good ideas than you have time and energy to pursue. I designed and ordered the tshirts, dude. Give me a break. However, recently Logosportswear, which is the actual source of our tshirts sent me an email mentioning setting up a store with them. I thought: why not? Maybe I'd been drinking.
Set up was pretty easy though and now we gots a Ginger & Gingerphile Store online. The good thing about this is that tshirts are cheaper so people who aren't sure they want to buy a $25 full color book are more open to buying a $15 tshirt. (Those are event prices: we pass along our discount.) And then they say what the hell and buy the book too. We wear the shirts at events so they have to stare at them for an hour. That might lead to sales. Also, the shirts are RED, which is a motivating color. Ask any bull.
It doesn't have to be tshirts. The Modern Bear boys have dog tags and other products. David is going to sell prints and cards of the book photos. Someone said we should do a calendar since we have 13 images, one for the front and one for each month. A little late to get going on it now but a good idea for 2014 maybe.
For now, check out the Ginger stuff we do have:
Ginger Snaps: the Book http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527
Ginger & Gingerphile tshirts http://gingergingerphiletee.logosoftwear.com
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