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This month, I'm especially pleased to offer an article written by two wonderful authors, Kathleen Walls and Joseph L. O'Steen. In it, they discuss a special way historical authors can "stand out" at booksignings. You might just find some great ideas here.

Dress for Success
Kathleen Walls

With the sluggish economy and more books on the market than ever before, how can an author make his or her book stand out? One-way to accomplish this and have a lot of fun is to dress for success. No, not a three-piece suit! Do your signings dressed as your character. This works especially well if your book is a historical romance or other book set in a different time frame.

I have done this successfully as either a character from my Kudzu, Weezie. Kudzu is a romance/mystery and in it my heroine, Casey, is transported from present day north Georgia into the past when she begins to read her great grandmother's diary. In the past, she finds herself inside the mind of her ancestor, Louisa Garrett. Louisa was born in 1865 and lived until 1970 when great granddaughter Casey was a precocious five year old listening to her Granny Weezie telling tales of the missing Confederate Treasury.

A simple long skirt of a patchwork material and a genuine antique white blouse topped off with a flowered straw hat and I am Weezie. I wear a pair of present day shoes that resemble the black high top lace up ones worn in the 1800. At signings I tell tales in character about life in 1870s Appalachia. Samples of Appalachian crafts, such as a small quilt and a woven basket add even more interest.

An alternative costume I wear is an antebellum lace bridal gown complete with hoop petticoat. It is a replica of one worn by the mannequin on the cover of my Georgia's Ghostly Getaways, a ghost story travel book. At present I have not acted in character with this one but I am thinking of picking one of the ghost stories about a Civil War bride and using that character for this costume. Or I may make up a fictitious history for her,
I do have a start and a name. The mannequin has been named Jane by the staff of the Marietta Museum of History where she is located. I plan to build on that and create a complete persona for Jane.

I use Jane mostly at Civil War re-enactments. I have found if your book is set in that period it is a great place to sell books. You have a lot of fun and learn to appreciate history at one of these events as well.

Another good venue to promote your books is to take your character to storytelling festivals. After all you already have a story in the book where you created this character. Why not carry it one step farther? This ploy works well for men authors as well.

This is what one male author has to say about the subject.

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Joseph L. O'Steen

Im having a great time with my costume. I really enjoy it when I see people start smiling as soon as they see me. Most have to come right over to see what I am about with many buying my book. That is when I know I made the right choice even if I didn't start wearing a costume for fun.

You see, I write sea novels about a British naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars. The first novel, "Falcon's Revenge," is doing well elsewhere, but not at home here in St. Augustine and Northeast Florida. My attempts to get the local media's attention have been zero so I decided to try something new. I call it "getting outside the box." We all know that box we tend to stay in while promoting our books the normal ways.

I recently commissioned a Civil War seamstress to make an 1803 British Naval Captain's uniform. I then wrote WJXT TV4 and told the producer about my book and that I do book signings in the British naval uniform. That worked and Sunday, March 21st, I was scheduled for a 3 1/2 minute interview. The interview went very well. The hostess, Nancy Rubin was very excited, held the book up several times, kept referring to the uniform as she questioned me about the book and the series I am writing and placed my web site and the Tall Ships Books (a big seller of my book) urls on the screen with plenty of time for everyone to write down the information. Another sign that it went well was that the scheduled 3 1/2 minute interview stretched into 4 1/2 minutes. It was a fun experience for me.

Since then Robert Fulton, Jr., PH.D, has asked permission to use me and my uniform marketing idea in his marketing seminars and an online magazine as well as a marketing newsletter have asked for permission to run articles about my new marketing tool and me. The hits are up on my web site, I'm having a great time playing in my costume and smiling people are buying my book. Life is good. I'm sitting here trying to figure how to use it to garner some regional and national attention. You see, once you step "Outside the Box" you will learn that there is no end to the marketing ideas that come to you.

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Kathleen Walls is Publisher of Global Authors Publications globalauthorspublications.com and is the author of Last Step, Georgia's Ghostly Getaways, Kudzu, Man Hunt - The Eric Rudolph Story, and Finding Florida's Phantoms. Visit her website at katywalls.com