The Social Media
http://grrm.livejournal.com/197075.html
So here's what I've done. I've given my friend Elio... better known to the denizens of Westeros as Ran... permission to syndicate my posts and comments on both Facebook and Twitter.
http://twitter.com/westerosorg
http://www.facebook.com/Westeros
HBO has launched a creative marketing campaign for Game of Thrones dubbed The Maester’s Path. The first step of this campaign is a box mailed to select critics and bloggers filled with vials, scrolls and a map of the Seven Kingdoms.
http://winter-is-coming.net/2011/02/the-maesters-path-begins/#more-5722
The box of stuff sounds fun. Reminds me of a project I was involved with some time ago.
A number of years ago, I was hired by some guy with money to burn (an attorney out of LA) to research a project he was contemplating with a friend/partner/whatever.
They wanted to make 'magic boxes' - boxes filled with the sort of props and tools that 16th/17th century street magicians would have used - hand-kerchiefs; coin purses; various rings and metal objects . . . all sorts of stuff.
Once I had done the historical research on both the magicians and their equipment (including what a 16/17th box looks like), they set me to finding out where they could source the material - they wanted each piece in the box, and the box itself, to be as authentic as possible - right down to using old wood to make the boxes.
That part was a challenge; easy enough to find metal-smiths who could do the metal objects, including the hinges and the locks on the boxes; and a company in the UK that sold old wood reclaimed from buildings (the price of 17th century oak is not as high as you might think!); and a carpenter who had the capacity to make many boxes, in the prescribed fashion, using only the tools available in the period; tanners who could provide leather made the old-fashioned way; craftspeople who could make the coin purses and do the embroidery . . .
the hardest was finding someone who could weave the cloth to make the hand-kerchiefs, using the proper materials and proper weave. I finally found someone in Canada.
It took me almost a year to research and source everything.
Then they decided not to do it; probably figured out it would cost more than they could make back or something. Who knows.
At least they paid me - but I was pretty disappointed that it never came together.
I love that sort of creative stuff - glad to see HBO using 'props' to encourage interest in the programme!