The Ad Man Answers #81

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Over the past couple years, the Ad Man has brainstormed marketing campaigns for published authors and up-and-comers.

Now it’s your turn.

Marshall Karp – author of the Lomax & Biggs’ mysteries and himself a former Ad Man – has a new release CUT, PASTE, KILL (Minotaur) scheduled for June 8th.  Marshall’s currently hard at work co-authoring a standalone thriller with James Patterson, but he’s agreed to take time from his writing schedule to judge our reader contest.

Your challenge:  Come up with a marketing idea around CUT, PASTE, KILL.  This could be in the form of an online banner campaign, viral video, PR stunt, contest, outdoor execution… let your mind roam.  We’ve got some creative thinkers frequenting ‘Buzz, Balls & Hype’, so I’m confident you can channel your inner Don Draper.  Extra points will be given to campaigns that fit within the framework of the creative brief, as opposed to “You should run a funny commercial in the Super Bowl, dude.”  Once you come up with your campaign idea, be sure to mention the environment of where you’d place it.

How to enter:  Leave your campaign idea(s) in the comments section below.  For examples of previous book-marketing campaigns, see these for M.K. Hobson and Katherine Howell.

Contest closes at midnight PST on 5/10, with our winner announced in the next Ad Man Answers on 5/13.

The prize:  A signed galley of CUT, PASTE, KILL sent to your house before the hardback is released.  Marshall has his own ideas about how his book should be marketed… but if he likes your idea enough, you may find a character named after you in his next Lomax & Biggs novel.

 

Your Creative Brief

Book description:

When Eleanor Bellingham-Crump — a socialite responsible for the death of a ten-year-old boy — turns up murdered on the bathroom floor of a Hollywood hotel, Lomax and Biggs are confronted with a crime of artistic brutality. Along with the scissors sticking out of Eleanor’s lifeless body, the two detectives find a meticulous scrapbook documenting a motive of vengeance in lurid detail.

As more bodies are discovered, each one connected by the intricate scrapbooks left at the scene, Lomax and Biggs go on the hunt for a vigilante stalking unpunished criminals. They must race to decode the meaning behind the scrapbooks before the crafty avenger has time to cut and paste the story of another kill.

With laugh-out-loud humor and crackling dialogue, the chapters hurtle toward a killer finale in the most thrilling Lomax & Biggs adventure yet.

See link for the first two chapters of CUT, PASTE, KILL.

Target Demo: Marshall’s hard-core fans tend to be crime fiction readers of all ages (more women than men, as women buy and read more books).  Based on past experience, the author feels there’s a good chance that once they read this fourth book in the series, they’ll go out and buy the first three. However, due to the subject matter of CUT, PASTE, KILL, Marshall believes there’s an opportunity to market to the scrapbooking community,typically women between the ages of 30-50.

Geographic Area: No particular geographic restrictions on any marketing ideas.  Bricks and mortar bookstores tend to be found in densely populated areas, but because of Amazon, E-books, and local libraries, Marshall also hears from many readers in small-town America.

Anticipated Publisher Support:  Minotaur will be providing galleys, trade advertising, and co-op support around the hardback release June 8.

Author Budget:  Slim to none.  Just because Marshall’s Lomax & Biggs series is in development for TV, doesn’t mean he is exempt from the usual author budget challenges.  Thanks to his history in advertising and entertainment, Marshall has access to camera equipment and actors on the cheap, so that’s a plus if you have an idea for a video executions.

 Author Positioning:  Marshall is difficult to position.  His mysteries are suspenseful and filled with clever twists, but his reviews and his fan mail most often focus on his strength as a character writer, and the laugh-out loud humor laced throughout his books.  James Patterson has said: “Marshall Karp is the only writer I know who can get big laughs out of murdering someone.”  Since few other writers juxtapose humor and suspense, his Lomax & Biggs books are outside of the traditional mystery genres.

Current tagline for CUT, PASTE, KILL:

THERE ARE 33 MILLION SCRAPBOOKERS IN AMERICA.

SOME ARE PASSIONATE. SOME ARE COMPULSIVE.

ONE IS HOMICIDAL.

I have to say, this is a damn fine tagline, because it outlines the massive size of the scrapbooking community (thus legitimizing the hobby and subject matter) while indicating to the reader it will be a “needle in a haystack” search for the killer. 

Think you can do better?  Give it your best shot.  The judges will be watching.

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for over a dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, AAA, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

Comments

[Cfajohnson]

Death According to Karp!

[gregory huffstutter]

CFA--
I wonder if John "World According to Garp" Irving would cry foul with your tagline.

But it's a good start. So now blow it out -- how would you create an entire marketing campaign around that idea?

The judges want more details.

[Elysabeth]

Scrapbooking is no longer for the crafting world.

When murder meets scrapbooking enthusiasts, what was once a fun hobby has now turned into an ugly documentation of murder.

When I first read the info about doing an ad campaign for this title, my first thoughts went to a surgeon or plastic surgeon - cutting, pasting (or reattaching in the surgeon's case). I wasn't thinking scrapbooking - so my original thought was a billboard - surgeons operating - He's cutting, oops - pasting (sewing the body part back on) and the patient dies. So then after reading the info on the book and realizing that surgery isn't going to work for this campaign ad, I tried to come up with something on the craft side.

Perhaps a video of group of women participating in a crafting circle or scrapbooking circle, a photo in one woman's box with blood on it or out of the ordinary (black & white in a all the colorful pictures or something not of family or whatever the theme is they scrapbooking at the time). As the camera scans the photos that are being placed into the books, it falls on the "out of place" one and the woman start freaking out - and looking at each other in a suspicious way - some dramatic music and then you could have a voiceover of a tagline or something with the lights dimming and the women having no place to go, only to find out that one of them is the "scrapbook killer" -

I write and not very creatively so doing an ad campaign is difficult. Good luck finding a suitable marketing campaign for this.