When our personal finance book for freelancers pubbed back in 2010, we met another author on the conference circuit who shared an anecdote from his first publishing experience. He told us how excited the editors at his Big Six publisher were when they printed up and shared with him a fresh box of bookmarks touting his book.

“They were so proud of themselves,” he said. “You would think they had invented the printing press. I didn’t have the heart to tell them what a waste of money it was.”

He was frankly hoping they would have put some of that money toward online ads. But his point was valid. In the post I’m sharing today, I go off on bookmarks a bit too. They’re the go-to swag among writers. I suppose if you read print books, they’re handy to have, but I can’t say as a reader that I’ve ever been excited to be handed a promotional bookmark by an author at a book signing. Woo-hoo. But more to the point, to paraphrase the great Joe Konrath, I’ve never bought a book because of a bookmark.

Writers are low-tech by nature. You don’t need an awful lot of technology to do what we do. If you have a chair, desk, and computer, you’re pretty much set. But convention season is coming up, and it behooves us to make some effort to promote ourselves and our work. I did a post tangentially related to this a while ago, talking about the type of business cards I take along with me these days. You can read the full post over at SleuthSayers. It’s entitled:

What Every Author Should Be Carrying in Their Pockets

Here’s me being cranky:

I’ve got two drawers in our office filled with bookmarks. The publishers print ’em up for my wife’s books, so I dutifully mail them to people whenever we send out a book or a bookplate. And if I’m anywhere near the table when Denise does signings, I always slip a bookmark into the reader’s book before they leave the table. Why? Because I hate the damn things, and I can’t wait to get rid of them. Thanks to my efforts, I predict we will finally finish them all by 2063.

The final biting irony is, paper is still useful, because no matter where we go, Denise and I strike up conversations with people who want to remember our names and our books on the way out the door.

You can see from the comments at the bottom of the SleuthSayers post that writers really could see a use for business cards that promote their work AND transmit critical contact information.

In the post, I recommend people use the Printfinity business card option via Moo. But biz cards are not the be-all, end-all. Far from it. Digital is handier and far less wasteful. On a recent research trip up north, we visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon. A first for both Denise and me. While having lunch at the Inn, we met the phenomenal history interpreter and resident fifer Don Francisco, who later passed along his contact info digitally, via the HiHello app. Don, a U.S. Army veteran who devoted thirty years to military service, is a fellow who now spends his days dressed in period kit: tricorn hat, knickerbockers, vest, tall stockings, and buckle shoes. He doesn’t have room in his 18th Century pants to tote Ye Olde Pewter Business Carde Holder. He’s got room for his wallet and phone. And for that, HiHello is perfect.

I’ve seen tech like HiHello over the years. For a while, the up-and-coming thing was cute, animal-shaped digital tokens that you pressed to the other person’s phone, or possibly the USB hanging from the lanyard around their necks. These days, folks swear by Dot.

Now it looks like Apple will finally murder biz cards dead. The story I saw yesterday says that the next iteration of iPhone software—iOS 17—will allow users to share contact cards via a new feature called NameDrop. Don’t know why it took them this long. It’s not like they didn’t have the tech. Maybe someone in Cupertino really, really loved paper.

All photos here by me.