Making Do

I’m going to the Malice Domestic conference at the end of this month in Washington, D.C.

This has put me in a tizzy. Conferences and other types of public appearances do that to me. I’m on a panel, too. :)

Now, suddenly, I’m done with various deadlines (until revision deadlines come in) and I’ve got Malice coming up in just a few weeks.

Bookmarks!!!

I needed bookmarks. I’ve had postcards and business cards. But I needed bookmarks.

I’ve needed bookmarks for a while. I’m in a couple of promotional groups that are very good to promote me while they’re promoting their own events. I’ve sent along postcards to these folks, but really…I needed bookmarks.

Iconix is supposed to be one of the best places to order bookmarks online. A ton of authors have told me this. Somehow, something always came up, priority-wise for me, though….and I didn’t call to order them.

And so…I got down to the wire and suddenly Malice was right on top of me and it was too late to order them online and still mail them to Lorraine Bartlett who nicely offered to bring them for me to Malice since I’m flying.

So I decided to make my bookmarks on MS Publisher which is a program already on my computer. After designing them (which took maybe 30 minutes), I emailed the bookmark as an attachment to Office Max. I asked them to print them on card stock, in color, and to print about $50 worth…and gave them my cell phone number if they had any questions.

I’m not even sure exactly how many I got, but it’s definitely several hundred.

If you’re in a similar boat, here’s how to make a bookmark on Publisher: (they can be printed 4 to a 8.5 x 11 page), with space for trimming. This is right from the Microsoft Office website.

1. In the Publication Types list, click Blank Page Sizes.
2. Under Standard, click Create custom page size.
3. In the Custom Page Size dialog box, type 2" in the Width box, and then type 7.5" in the Height box.
4. In the Name box, enter a name for the new custom page size.
5. Click OK to close the Custom Page Size dialog box, and then click Create to create the bookmark.

   Customize your bookmark publication by adding any pictures, graphics, or text that you want. You can also customize by selecting color schemes or font schemes. For more information about any these tasks, search Publisher Help.

So I’ve learned two lessons from this experience.

One—You can make your own bookmarks in case of an emergency and get them back that same day. If you have Microsoft Office on your computer, you have MS Publisher. They may not be as nice as the Iconix ones, but they were nice enough for the Office Max worker to ask me if I were “the bookmark lady” when I walked in and then ask me for a bookmark.

Two—Perfectionism takes up time and makes me lose out on opportunities. It’s better, for me anyway, to just go with something that works fine and use it instead of miss out on promotions.

Are you putting anything off until you can do it perfectly?