First Visit to UW-Oshkosh and Follow Up at UW-Whitewater
For being a full-time writer, I haven't been doing much writing lately. Fiction, anyway. This month, the focus has been entirely on PR for Flesh Wound, and in getting grass roots support going at the college level.
Yesterday I drove up to UW-Oshkosh, about 90 miles north of Milwaukee. This was the fifth and final campus I'd targeted for the initial deployment of the Faye posters promoting Flesh Wound. I liked UW-Oshkosh as soon as I got there. It's a bit smaller campus than UW-Whitewater and in a more populated area, but the late Fall sunshine and energy of the students gave the campus a vibrant feel. The first student I talked to was a girl in the Parking Information Booth, where I wanted to find out where visitors could park for the day. She was blonde, cute, and was wearing a black t-shirt with gold lettering that read, "UW-Oshkosh, UW's Official Drinking University". I smiled. UWO has a reputation for being a school that likes to party, even more than most. I thought Flesh Wound would definitely generate interest among the students here.
As I walked around to the various buildings on campus, I found the general rule to be true that the Student Union controlled postings closely, but the public boards in other academic buildings were fair game. I wound up posting a record 17 posters around campus, at the following locations:
-Albee Pool & Hall
-Student Mall at Sankari Park (4)
-Clow Classrooms (2)
-Journalism Building (2)
-Nursing Building
-Business Building
-Halsey Science Center (3)
-Art & Communications Building (3)
Each posting location is going to receive lots of foot traffic and should be seen by many students. So that trip was a success!
Today I drove back to UW-Whitewater, where I posted for the first time last week. It was rainy and 40 degrees today, so the trek around campus was faster and there were no students lolling on the lawns soaking up sunshine. I was pleased to find that of the eight posters I'd put up one week ago, five were still there (62.5%). Two of the three had been taken from Hyland Hall (the Business building), and the poster in Drumlin Hall (Student Dining Hall) was gone. I replaced those, and added another to Hyland so there is a total of nine posters up now.
I'm hoping that the re-posting will be noticed by students, and the image on the poster and the message stand a better chance of being noticed and remembered as a result of the staying power of the posters. If you see the poster every day for a week, then it's gone, then you see it again, hopefully it starts to be memorable. The real proof will be in the number of hits the website gets. I'll post those numbers here later in the week.
So now it is time to get after phase 2 of the PR plan, which is running ads in the University newspapers! Tomorrow I research those rates and decide which schools to target first.
I can't wait to get back to writing "Rubbed Out". I had a great idea for a parallel plot line occur to me the other day while walking around, and the outline of the book is starting to take very good shape in my mind. What I'm doing with PR for Flesh Wound right now is important, but I can't wait to get back to writing!
Stay strong, the week is half done! Read something today that makes you laugh out loud! Thanks for reading. -Jon
