Learning New Tricks in Self-Promotion

I have seen the future of book promotion, and his name is Chip Kidd:



As if the man's work couldn't already be seen all over bookstores everywhere, Kidd is a writer, too. And that seems kind of unfair to me. It seems like you should be good at graphic design or good at writing (I enjoyed his first novel, The Cheese Monkeys), but is it really fair to be good at both? It's kind of like being beautiful or funny. Beautiful people have their appeal, as do funny people. But can you really be both? C'mon, man. Leave something for the rest of us.

Anyway, the bar has now been raised. If I ever publish a novel, I'll have to produce a video to promote it. (I should've thought about that for Tigers Corner 2008. Ahem.) Maybe my buddy Peter J. Schwab can help me with that. That is, unless everyone else starts doing this, too.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Kidd will be appearing at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor this evening, courtesy of the University of Michigan and AIGA Detroit. If Kidd is signing copies of his new novel, The Learners, I might just have to pick one up for myself.