You’re probably seeing them everywhere now — weird little pixelated squares that seem like they’ll reveal an image if you stare cross-eyed at them long enough.

They’re called QR codes (short for Quick Response), and they’re meant to be read by smartphones. You can download a free QR reader app to your BlackBerry, iPhone or Android, scan any of these codes, and they’ll take you to a bit of text, open a URL in your phone’s web browser, or otherwise direct you to more information.  You’ll see them on coupons, in magazines, on posters…And more and more, you’ll see them used in book promotion.

The value of QR codes is that they give a person a chance to bookmark something on the web instantly, when they’re away from their computer. For book promotion, this means you can put a code on a poster, a flyer, a bookmark, or other hardcopy promotional tools. An interested reader can scan the code to be taken instantly to your website, a special promotional page, or (as above) directly to the ebook purchasing site for your book.

Scanning the example code above leads directly to the Kindle store page for WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME. If I wanted to, I could generate business cards with codes that link to my book, or to my blog, or to a poem, or to a list of links to purchase all my books.

There are websites that charge a fee to generate QR codes for you, but do a little searching online and you’ll find plenty of websites that generate them for free.

If you are a published author, I strongly encourage you to go sign up for Amazon.com’s Author Central and create your author page.

More than just a listing of your current works, author pages are designed to be a better-rounded promotional opportunity. You can put up a headshot, a biography, and link in your latest blog posts. Take a look at my client Chris Jackson’s author page as an example.

It’s free, centralized publicity available any time someone clicks your name on Amazon.com, and a potentially useful self-promotion tool, so go and take a few moments to sign up.

This week I’ve been very busy finishing up one fantastic project and diving headlong into another. I feel really fortunate to be able to work with some seriously great new writers, and I have a feeling that these two in particular are going to go far.