Pre-flight Preparations

Tomorrow I fly out to Geradlton for a short, three day tour of the local schools. This will be my second time in town so it will be great to see how my old students are faring. In consequence I've spent most of they day preparing my lesson plans and resources, so I thought I would me nice to write a little update post. 

In anticipation of the new proofs for The Running Horses to return, I've been researching marketing strategies for picture books. I would like to try something different from the usual school/library tours and readings (since my book has no words), signings and media releases. I am not going to completely disregard these efforts, though, since they can be useful for promoting a book. I just want to do something different. 

The Running Horses has two potential gimmicks to exploit: horses and the colour purple.

Short of colouring my horses purple with Centrigen and riding them around (which I'll probably do anyway) I've decided to explore origami. My idea is to produce little purple origami horses and stamp them with information about RHP and my social media links. The next step would be number and strategically distribute the models to be found by other people. 

Finished my coffee at a cafe? Leave a little purple origami horse at the table. 

Don't feel like studying at the same table anymore? Leave a little purple origami horse when I move. 

Ready to get off a bus in the city? Leave a little purple origami horse on the seat. 

The idea is that people, particularly students, would Instagram/tweet/Facebook the experience of finding the little horses and spread word about the project. I am still considering whether to develop the idea as a unique project- The Purple Pony Project- or to simply push the findings as an act of publicity. 

The only catch I can see is investing the time in producing perhaps thousands of origami horses. It could be a good study break close to exams. 

Tonight I lunged the horses because the first rain we've seen in the country for a few months occurred as I slung the saddle over the fence. Now I'm photoshopping some book/university process stuff to post on the blog, since I just photographed some sculptural books and cranked up my little scanner.