Welcome friend! Today I have the pleasure of hosting author Phil Williams. Phil writes contemporary fantasy and dystopian fiction, including the Ordshaw urban fantasy thrillers and the post-apocalyptic Estalia series. He is also the author of bestselling reference books to help foreign learners master English. Two years ago, I had hosted him for an interview about Under Ordshaw, first of the Ordshaw series. With the upcoming release of Dyer Street Punk Witches, a standalone novel set in the contemporary UK city of Ordshaw, Phil has been working on companion trading cards! Let’s learn from him about the inspiration and process of coming up with character trading cards.
Producing Character Trading Cards
Guest post by Phil Williams
This is something I’d been itching to do for a while. I go into a lot of detail fleshing out my characters with background detail, and sometimes I want to celebrate them with more than just a place in the story. You can do that with side stories, or character profiles (or countless sequels, of course), but here was another: what about character trading cards? A collectible item combining an extra little bit of detail seemed like the ideal way to delve deeper into the lore…
When I wrote Dyer Street Punk Witches, which contains a smorgasbord of characters with rich lives, I decided this was an idea whose time had come.
Why Trading Cards?
Toying over and exchanging cards is something that most people have probably experienced at some point. I personally grew up playing role-playing games, mucking about with Top Trumps and swapping football stickers. It was never just about playing the games or completing a set, it was about the joy of the chase: uncovering different cards, never sure what you’d get.
That was a little slice of childhood I wanted to recreate.
I enjoyed the challenge of designing something to effectively reflect each character, and imagined how this might appeal to fans of the story, both as an activity and as supplementary material for the book.
Mastering the Designs
I had a head start on the designs by already having produced a cover that I loved, which embodied my main character, Kit. From there, it was a case of recapturing that style for a card template, then matching the imagery for other characters. I designed one chief card for Kit and used a variety of frames and backgrounds to complete a set of 14. The biggest challenge here was finding images that at least roughly matched my idea for each character, and they’re not 100% in all cases but it was a good exercise in casting compromises.
I produced the text on the cards a little while before I designed the cards themselves, which actually helped in part of the process of writing the books. I started with a basic list of traits, such as D.O.B., Affiliations and Quotes, but after a few cards realised it was more fun to adapt the information to more specifically suit each character. So they actually show a wide variety of sometimes random details; for example, one has “Favourite Mario Kart Character” and another “Most Received Insult At School”. The result is a pack of cards crammed with little bits of trivia (and some humour) which give the characters that little bit more depth when reading.
The Release Plan
When I started out, my idea was to release these designs digitally. I had in mind an online Easter Egg hunt, where different blogs posting reviews or features about the novel could share different images. Readers could then scour the internet for them, earning trading card rewards whilst also being introduced to wonderful new blogs at the same time.
From this simple beginning, I also had at the back of my mind that it might be possible to actually print them. In the worst case, I could do them as business cards. I discovered there are printers making affordable, easily produced gaming materials. Even better, I realised that instead of buying lots of individual packs of cards, I could buy cut my costs a lot by buying one big pack if I collated the images myself. It took some effort, but it paid off!
And lo, I ended up a bunch of physical cards, and even more ideas for promos.
It’s a requirement I’ve set myself that these cards will only be found through giveaways. Using the stock licenses I have, the cards have been produced for promotional purposes. They’re not for sale, and won’t be. So this isn’t something people can buy their way into (unless you got 14 signed copies, and also got rather lucky!) – the thrill is in the chase!
Right now, I’m running a pre-order promotion to give away one complete set of cards to a randomly chosen reader who has pre-ordered the book (you can find more information on that here). I’ll have more giveaways to follow, and I’m going to be giving away single cards with each signed copy of the book (and with any books I sell in person). They’ll also make useful calling cards in case I don’t have a book handy, as the cards have a QR code linking to a page about Dyer Street Punk Witches.
My hope, at the end of it all, is that some of the thrill I’ve had in making these will come through and be shared by readers. Either way, I’m chuffed just to have been able to make these things a reality – and look forward to doing more for the other Ordshaw novels!
This post would be incomplete without a special card, first reveal, just for you. 🙂
Meet Drew Fuller:
Do you play/create trading cards? Tell us what you like about them in the comments.
Thank you so much for joining us! Connect with Phil on his website, Twitter and Facebook. Check out Dyer Street Punk Witches on Goodreads and the trading cards here.
Cover image: Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash
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