Many writers join the ranks of authorship each day. Whether their ideas are great ones or not, they are writing and publishing books by the multitudes! How does one children's book author compete with all of those other books out there?
Analyze Your Target Audience
If your book was written for 6-9 year olds, will you find your audience on Twitter? Facebook? Instagram?
No. Parents, yes, but the children, no.
And if parents are on social media, will they be looking for books for their children?
Again, no! They are talking to their friends. Even if a book gets suggested to them by a new friend, they forget about it. Their lives are full and busy.
Why reach out to the children themselves?
Think about the holidays and commercials. What is it that draws children to those toys like little moths to a big light? They see other children interacting with it. It's new! It's cool! It's cartoon! It's part of their everyday interactions with other children.
When is the best time to reach out to children?
When they are awake. During the day.
Where are children during the day?
Most of them are in school, interacting with other children and learning.
How do you reach children in school?
Sure you can go to the school. Sure you can read your book to them, leave bookmarks, have a writing Q&A. That's a great way to connect... and very expensive if you are on your own in your writing business. You might spend hundreds of dollars for hotels, food, travel to sell a few books, if you are lucky. But, hey, it's about the exposure, right? You could spend your entire salary from your day job exposing your book to thousands and not have it catch on. That's why big publishing houses are so selective in the books they produce.
Scholastic corners the market for reaching school children. Think back to when your child was in school... Scholastic sent home their little catalogs two or three times a month. Is your book in Scholastic? Unless you are published by a big publisher who has ins with Scholastic, no. Will it ever be in that little catalog? If it's not already, or not popular, it's not likely.
Seems like a lost cause to write children's books, doesn't it?
This Spring I stumbled on a way to reach chlidren that I'd never considered. See, I'm also an online educator. As an educator, I have connections to the school market, plus some very interesting online course development software. Recently, I designed a lesson for my freshman composition course in which I used the first page of two of my young adult novels. I entered the lesson in the software producers annual contest. Imagine my surprise when my lesson won first place!
Was I excited? You bet! I work hard on my lessons for class. I want to teach my students new concepts in fun ways. I'd forgotten about the two pages I'd used for examples in the lesson. Did I do that on purpose? You bet! What better way to promote my books than to put them in front of students. Now here's the great news: It worked! Since I won that contest, several other educators have been downloading, viewing, sharing my lesson... with the mention and viewing of my fantasy books attached and I have been selling copies of my young adult books.
So, I began to wonder if I could use all of this new information to help other children's book authors get their books before the eyes of school children. Through a plethora of educational software, I could set up a better way than Scholastic of reaching the school market while advertising children's books!
Why would I do that for other people?
Because I know what it's like to be one in a billion authors struggling to make it.
Because I am an educator and know what educators want and need.
Because I am creative, and my mind is creating this opportunity now.
Because I am in touch with children... and I know how their eyes light up when they discover some new technology or idea. I like to see that light.
Because I want to take the five things I love most--altruism, education, writing, creating, innovation--and build a program that helps indie authors and educators connect, while helping children find new books on the market that may never be available in stores.
Because I want to do what I love, and I am excited about this opportunity to connect all I love in one program.
Can you get involved?
You sure can. To begin, I could really use some feedback on this program and opportunity. I would love to have every children's book author who reads this article fill out this survey about this author- to- school connection. If you have published a school appropriate children's book for any level, please click the link, Marketing Children's Books to Schools, below and take a few minutes to fill out my 10 question survey.
Thanks in advance for helping me determine whether there is a need for such a program!
Congratulations on your first place in the contest and this well-written and well thought out article. It seems like most everyone with children thinks that they can write and market a children's book. I don't think that is so. I recall my first and second grade experience being introduced to Dr. Seuss by our teacher taking us to the library and the children's books section.
In my mind, since a picture is worth 1000 words, unless a children's book is brilliantly illustrated in a child's way of looking at things, words mean little. That's why Dr. Seuss's books were so successful, his illustrations.
Good luck with your efforts to teach other children's authors the route to success. I'm still trying to figure out how to get teenyboppers to buy my latest YouTube hit ;-)
Ron