How heavy is your bookmark? What does your business card feel like? Do they leave a positive impression? Are you sure?

As an author, when you ask a reader to select your book to spend many precious hours with, you are commanding a high price point. Your book may be only $6, or a $10 ebook, or it might even sell for $16 or more, but hours of someone’s time is far more valuable. Obviously if your book fails to enchant the reader they may feel cheated. But what else might be jarring about the experience of reading your book? What else might leave the reader thinking: “Really?”

How about an ugly bookmark? One that clearly says, “I spent as little as possible on this.” That bookmark might actually be a liability, leaving your customer with the feeling that you didn’t think that they were worth anything more than your cheapest effort.

Analogy:

When I bought my house last year I spent a few stressful hours in a title company conference room signing a massive stack of paperwork. For the privilege of doing so, plus the title company’s legwork to ensure that the title to the house was clear (very important), the title company charged a significant 4-digit figure, their regular price point.

At the end of the session I was handed a vinyl envelope as a “gift” — swag, as it were. A takeaway. The envelope was emblazoned with the company’s logo and is the right size to house some paperwork. In it was a heavy, substantial feeling key chain — appropriate for a title company, yes? I instantly saw it as my spare key set chain. Back in the car with the vinyl on my lap I held the key chain in my hand, rolled its weight from one hand to the other as I nervously contemplated the huge purchase I had just made. I then reached into the vinyl envelope and pulled out a couple of unimpressive one-color notepads and an incredibly cheap pen — one of those pens, the ones you never choose.

I sat there holding the pen thinking, “Really?” I expect a cheap pen when I walk out of a Home Depot, or the cash-strapped library. But at the title company’s price point (especially for as little work as I felt that they did), the pen felt wrong. The effort of the key chain was overshadowed by the obvious cheapness of the pens — the company would have been better off leaving the pen out of the mix entirely. And as a brand player, I now associated “cheap” with the that company.

One supposes if I had pulled out the pens before the key chain perhaps the key chain would have made up for the pens, but do you really want to have to make up for anything?

Segue to:

When we recently printed some bookmarks for a client (they are so pretty!) the printer accidentally grabbed the wrong paper and printed the whole stack of them on something far thinner than I had specified. The bookmarks looked beautiful, the color was so vibrant, the cover beautifully displayed, but the piece felt cheap.

They were reprinted.

Go for nice design and substantial paper for your bookmarks and business cards. It matters.