Marketing Madness - But It Doesn't Have to Be by author Jackie Castle #ChaBooCha

Marketing Madness... But It Doesn't Have To Be 

Fact is, children generally do not buy their own books. Parents do. So, how can you catch, first a parent's interest, then draw in children? Here's a few tips I've thought about and plan to try implementing when my middle grade series, The Watchers is released this spring.

Use Pinterest to Gain Interest

Pinterest is a wonderful place to draw interest in your stories. Start early by following libraries, book interest groups and Kid-lit bloggers on Pinterest. Set up a board for not only your favorite children's books, but set up a board and pin anything that's related to your book. Is it a fictional story? There are loads of scenery and character inspiration pictures you can find and pin to your story board. Make a small note on why you included that link or picture. If you're writing non-fiction? Look for inspirational memes, articles or pictures that will go along with your topic.

Use a Blog Site to Make It Fun

Create a blog that revolves around your story world or topic. Provide extended learning activities to go along with your story or book. Character sketches. Fan art. Extra scenes. Notes, facts or bits of story background written by one of your characters.

Think outside the box and think of the other groups of people who might be willing to purchase your book for a child. Teachers. Home School Parents. Librarians. Daycare Teachers.

Can you provide a list of vocabulary words? How about math or social studies lessons to go along with the book?

My series The Watcher's deals with nature conservation, so I'll be including lessons about nature, recycling, protecting wildlife and other topics on my Watcher's book series blog.

If you have illustrations, see about offering coloring pages that can be printed and colored.

Create videos you can put up on YouTube, your website or other social networking sites. Read part of your book. Show pictures of a character and talk about them. Again, think outside of the box. Think of what can you do, that a parent will want to show their child to help entertain them? Keep it simple. Keep it fun.

Posting on Promotional Sites

Invest some funds on purchasing ads on book promotion sites.

There are many who will help get your book out to people who are looking for... well, books. Some you will pay a lot, but many only require a small fee. Do some research, see what the audience is for various promotional sites. Maybe often promote children's books.

Moving Away From the Computer, now....

Schedule school visits in your area. Better yet, zone in on a writing lesson you can teach children. Offer your workshop for free with the allowance of selling your books. Print up a list of your books for children to order before the workshop and the price of each book. Make sure your presentation is good, and then ask the teachers for feedback.

Check with your local library about speaking on your topic, or offering a workshop and selling your books. Again, you can teach writing lessons, or offer summer classes.

Craft Fairs and Book Fairs are both places families will visit. Check into setting up a vendors booth.

Resources:

- Joanna Penn at The Creative Pen offers tips on marketing, and does weekly podcast about the writing life. There is one podcast that deals with marking children's books.

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2014/01/14/books-for-children-karen-inglis/

- Six Powerful Ways To Market Children's Books.
http://www.30daybooks.com/six-powerful-ways-to-market-childrens-books/

- Katie Davis is a great resource on marketing kids books. Tune into her Brain Burps About Books podcast for tips and ideas on marketing and the kid-lit world.  

http://katiedavis.com/

- Children's Book Insider and another great resource for all things dealing with Children's books. There is a membership fee, but they offer a wealth of tips and training for children's writers. http://cbiclubhouse.com/clubhouse/

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About the Author

Jackie Castle graduated from UT Southwestern Medical Center of Dallas. She is a published freelance writer, storyteller and former elementary school educator. She lives in Texas with her husband, children, and dog, Ginger (aka ginger-roonie).

Her favorite pastime, besides reading, is traipsing through the worlds of Alburnium or Fae in search of another story.

She looks for the extraordinary in the ordinary in everything she experiences.

Find out more about her shenanigans over at Jackie Castle's Story World: www.jackiecastle.com where you can find links to her own book blog sites.

The White Road Chronicles http://jackiecastlebooks.blogspot.com

Visit The Castle Library for reading adventures. http://castlereads.blogspot.com

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Give-away

Today's prize is a copy of "The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression" by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. If you don't already have this book, you really should get it. If you are already signed up for the challenge, all you need to do to enter the drawing for this book is to comment on this blog post. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator on March 31st at noon and will be announced later the same day.