We did the mash, the MONSTER mash.

For this week's prompt, I would like you to think of an innovative way to promote romance, gentle reads or horror at your local library.

In order to promote horror books, I would take a spin on the “blind date with a book” idea, which seems typical with romance novels, and turn it into “blind date with a monster”. It would be a simple, blind date with a book display, but I would make the word “book” look like it was torn by monster claws and have a scarily written in red “monster” sign, either by or underneath where the word “book” was. I think this would be eye-catching and make patrons do a double-take. All the books would be wrapped in either dark paper or the traditional brown, so they do not know the title or author of the book. On the paper, I would just simply write the description of the monster in the book. This may take a little research if no one in the library has read the book, but the description could be as simple, or as detailed as it needs to be. I like the idea of them just having one word written on the paper because it leaves a sense of mystery to it, which is something many horror novels have. For example, if it where a book about a serial killer, it could just say “human” or “killer”, or a ghost story could have “ghost” or “paranormal”. There would be no need to write the genre on the paper because they would all be horror themed. Also, by writing what kind of monster is in the book, it gives the reader an insight to what the story will be about. This would be extremely difficult with books that the monster is a secret, or the monster is supposed to be unknown. I suppose one could either leave it blank or write “surprise” on the paper. That would intrigue me, but I feel that writing too much on the cover, like other annotations, would take away from the “blind date” and fun part of it.