Printing & Marketing Children’s Books - Jane Clack
Jane kindly prepared some notes as she can't be present in person for our session of 27th April on publishing and they're reproduced here.
Apologies for not being here in ‘person’ and also if I’m regurgitating stuff that you already know. Paul has asked me to ‘speak’ firstly about my experiences with printing my kids’ books and, secondly, about my ‘successes’ with marketing.
For a lot of you, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably realise by now that writing your book, whilst it seemed hard work at the time is actually NOTHING compared to producing the darn thing and marketing it! That’s when all the hard work really begins. And it doesn’t go away!
PRINTING
When I wrote my first book, I ran the usual rounds approaching publishers whose details I found in the Writer’s & Illustrator’s Guide to Children’s Book Publishers and Agents (check this title when I’m home). I guess today, you’d just Google them. Once I was finally offered a contract, my bubble was burst somewhat because I quickly realised that I’d be fettered with several silly constraints, that I’d earn peanuts in royalties and that I’d STILL have to work hard to promote my books myself. I decided to go it alone. It’s been a steep and ongoing learning curve.
I decided to become my own ‘publisher’. So I found an illustrator (luck) and created my own publishing ‘company’ (Box of Frogs). My illustrator helped me to come up with a logo and to find a palette of colours to help with marketing my product.I’ve only put my last couple of books on Amazon (and am now catching up), so prior to that I had to find printers. Eight years ago the cost of your print run with a traditional printer was dependent on the number of books you wanted to print - the more you printed the cheaper it became. This could be pricey, especially if you had a limited budget, and you also had to have the space to store them with no guarantee of selling them. More recently, lots of printers have moved towards Print On Demand (like Amazon) and so ‘runs’ became cheaper. However, I’ve been staggered by the rapid recent inflation in printing costs. Of course, if you publish with Amazon you can buy your own author copies, although this can still be expensive. I’ve also found that other traditional printers produce better quality books. I guess it’s important (if you can be bothered) to continually shop around rather like you would with your energy providers.
One valuable piece of advice when considering all of this - I would always recommend having your own Nielsen ISBN number, irrelevant of whether or not you sell your books via Amazon because it provides flexibility if you want to sell your books via other channels. (Paul may disagree 😊). My reason? Indie bookshops are anti-Amazon. If (and I repeat IF) you find a helpful Indie bookshop who is prepared to stock your books and allow you to run signings, they will generally require a Nielsen ISBN. If you want to stock at Waterstones you will need to obtain a trading agreement with Gardners and you can’t do this if you don’t already have a Nielsen ISBN!
Another piece of advice - don’t print a price on the back of your book. This will allow you flexibility in terms of your pricing.
MARKETING
So having got your physical books (or ebooks) produced, how do you go about marketing them?
Think about your USP (Unique Selling Point).
Think about who your customers are. Mine aren’t kids, they’re grandparents! It’s interesting to note here that I find it MUCH easier to sell my picture books than my books which are aimed at slightly older children. I THINK it’s because adults are confident choosing material for younger children and worry that they might pick something for older children that won’t appeal to them. The same probably applies to garments and footwear. Alternatively, it might be because my books for older children just don’t look as appealing (but no one has been brave enough to tell me that face to face). A third possibility, which I don’t like to dwell on too much, is the possibility that the slightly older kids just aren’t so much into books any more.
What is social media? It is a platform that allows you to interact with family, friends, organisations, influencers and brands. There are 4.76 billion social media users which are 59.4% of the world’s population. An average user spends 2 hours and 31 minutes daily on social media. Used properly, it can get you exposure. However, the social media firms use YOU as a product and trap your data to find out what you like so that they can sell to you. You CAN use this to your advantage by engaging in ‘guerrilla marketing tactics’ by grabbing on to the shirt tails of influencers whose posts are going viral. Use it to scale up your brand awareness on digital platforms.
Regardless of what you think about social media (and even if you are traditionally published) I think it’s crucial to have a presence so that you appear to be professional and successful. People ‘expect’ you to have a website, a business card and some kind of online presence (even if it’s a nuisance, time consuming and constantly evolving). The nitty gritty of SEO and algorithms can be left for another time!
Even though it’s time consuming, I have social media to thank for networking and for becoming involved with other organisations such as PYA and The Book Dragon etc. I also have social media to thank for providing a semblance of success. I have a philosophy - people are often gullible and believe what social media says - so tell them you’re successful and they’re likely to believe it. Just don’t scratch too far below the surface!
SOCIAL MEDIA
I run a personal account as well as an author one. I now tend to post more regularly on my personal one as it seems to target my immediate audience and I don’t get bombarded quite so often with adverts. To date I have never paid for Facebook adverts although some suggest that it can be beneficial to boost certain posts that are attracting more attention. Facebook tends to be popular with adults over the age of 40 (my grandparents) and has become less trendy with younger audiences.
This is probably my favourite. It is popular with influencers, artists and brands and tends to be used by teens and those under 40. When I use Instagram I don’t duplicate everything from my Facebook page. I find that hashtags work well in generating a wider audience. It’s a good idea to research popular ones and copy influencers who create trends. It is good practice to post the hashtags at the end of your post.
LINKED IN
I know that my social media posts are working reasonably well when people have been snooping here!
Twitter is supposedly highly influential, political and male dominated. I have to confess that I don’t understand this platform as well and I don’t use it as often as I should (although I was approached to donate to Children In Need which provides good publicity for other areas of social media).
TIKTOK
Regardless of politics, Tiktok (Booktok) is turning the traditional publishing world on its head. Influencers (often professional, young and full time) have had the power to blast unknown indie authors into the spotlight - and there’s little that the traditional publishing houses have been able to do about it except to sit up and take notice.
YOUTUBE
YouTube is popular for 15 - 35 years old. There is also a YouTube for kids. It is extremely popular for educational purposes. It is on my list of jobs to get to grips with making videos and posting on YouTube because I remember seeing a video of a Scottish Granny reading the story of The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith to her grandson. It went viral and began to appear in all the bookshops!
MASTODON
This is a rapidly growing, decentralised platform that has nothing to sell and is not controlled by algorithms. Over to Paul on this one.
CONTENT
Getting the content right for social media, be it stills, animations, videos or photos is an art form in itself (which I don’t profess to have). The content needs to be impactful and I keep promising myself that one day I’ll do a course about how to do it properly. However, it seems to me that potential customers want to know about YOU - your pets, your grandchildren etc. If you overdo it with just your book covers you don’t seem to get as many hits. Being naturally camera shy, I find it bizarre that if I post pictures of myself (rare), I tend to get lots more hits. People also seem to like stars, spangles, boomerangs, emojis and other gizmos. Sigh. Try to always include a call to action and include links.
BLOGS
Despite doing some research, I still have to fully understand what a blog is. For some it seems to be a diary entry, for others a photo with some explanation and for others still, a full blown article about something. All I can say is that I find swathes of writing about something on social media rather off-putting (and that’s coming from someone who professes to be an author and who likes reading)! Maybe the lesson here is that what you think is interesting might be tedious to someone else.
FACE TO FACE EVENTS
For me this is by FAR AND AWAY the BEST way to sell my books. People are drawn to colourful picture books and enticing covers. Just try to make sure it’s somewhere where there is natural footfall where you can grab the attention of impulsive buyers - none of us are naive enough to think that people are coming just to see us (yet)! It’s interesting to note that people rarely ask me about the price of my books when they decide to purchase one but they frequently ask if they can find me on social media. Most customers seem to be happy to let me take a photo of them with my book to post on social media.
- Book signings
- Craft fairs
- Christmas fairs
- PYA book fairs etc
- Libraries (although sadly less footfall)
As a children’s author there’s normally something in my picture books that someone loves, be it a giraffe or a hippo or a farting elephant! You’d be amazed how many adults have bought copies of ‘Parp & Trump of Windy Bottom’ for themselves, not for their kids!
I find that investing in a few freebies (book marks/badges etc) are a great way of entering into conversation. Who doesn’t like a freebie?
If you own a payment device (Square for example), it’s a great way to capture data, so long as you adhere to good practice. There was once a time when I’d email existing customers to tell them that I had a new release but it didn’t produce results in terms of extra sales. I repeat - many customers are often impulsive buyers.
I’m sure that the reason that I do quite well at face to face events is because I now have a nice little collection of books with great illustrations to choose from, so keep going and carry on adding to your titles! Help us to find more exciting venues where this is lots of natural footfall.
