About 22 years or so ago, when I first opened The Tarot Room, I was looking for ways to advertise. The goal was to try something that wasn’t too expensive, and also not too weird. Ads for Tarot and Psychic readings can be both shady and cringe inducing (though I’m often fond of the graphics and really really want a neon Tarot Reader sign for my window).
But anyway … I decided on bookmarks. Not sure why, other than that I read a lot and always need one myself. They were also fairly cheap. I drew the picture for it myself (a stylized Empress in the RWS vein), and think I spent about $200 to print up 1000 or 2000 copies, I don’t remember exactly. There were a lot. But I liked them, and still had hope.
My next step was to get them distributed around the city. I hired a local postering company to get them into various cafes and bars around town, especially in my neighbourhood. Then I waited.
You’ve probably guessed already … my bookmark idea did not achieve its goals. I got zero business. In fact, I got only one call for all my effort and expense. It was in the middle of the night by some drunk guy (or at least he sounded drunk), asking me if I looked like the woman on the bookmark. I told him that I did not.
There’s no moral to this story, except that maybe bookmarks in bars and cafes are not good advertising tools for Tarot readers, or at least not for me. I’m telling this sad (or is it pathetic) story only because I just came across a dusty box filled with bookmarks … hundreds of them. Anybody want one?