Teachers and your book

As recommenders and buyers, teachers are the bunch worth cultivating. Unfortunately, they can be an elusive bunch, reticent to provide direct contact with their classrooms and core curriculums. Too often teachers are asked by authors to do in-classroom presentations; that might work if you're an author with acclaim, but for most authors, a teacher's interest needs to be attracted in other ways.

In a recent BookExpo discussion recounted on Shelf Awareness, several tips on building relationships with teachers, were suggested by Kristen McLean, American Booksellers for Children:
• Subject-based book talks with teacher-only invites at libraries and bookstores.
• Offer teacher in-service.
• Form creative partnerships with local schools. As in, a course on Sioux Nation, taught over span of weeks, involving several authors.
• For bookstores, create an in-store education information center.
• Spearhead buy-local programs using attractive discounts and delivery systems.

Shelly Plumb, owner of Harleysville Books, in Pennsylvania, noted that children's books are her bestselling category for which she has developed several programs:
-- Participation in the Pennsylvania State Certification Program and offering PSCP courses to teachers. (Most attendees are private or parochial schoolteachers.)
Establishing eight types of book fairs for schools, from preschool through middle school.
-- A contest with schools where they earn "book bucks" and a prize goes to the school that's read the most books.

Ms. Obie Joe really loved how the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur worked with parents to originate a book fair to counter the mass market titles and "gimmicky things" offered through Scholastic Book Fairs. That kind of book fair may be modest in profit, but big on profits in goodwill and name recognition among teachers.

What? I can't do book promotion for free?

Book people, because of their affection for literature and ideas, tend to do a lot of free work when moved. And that's cool, because many of us are both beneficiaries and philanthropists (thank you, Michelle, for my latest book edit!).

But sometimes it goes too far, as it does in many service sectors. Just because you adore what you're doing doesn't mean you have to tolerate the attitude that it's not worth much.

Bella Stander of Book Promotion 101, sent the apt link of how many Vendor-Client relationships go.

Beware the duck-handled umbrella!

As fellow blue collar workers, parents, and of course, book promoters, this anecdote of a book appearance gone awry prompted much laughs.

The temperament of author Alison Uttley didn't quite match the sentiment of her classic “Little Grey Rabbit” children’s books.

MobyLives, the blog for Melville House Publishing, caught the best part of a anecdote from Uttley's publicist:


"...the release is also prompting some who worked with her to come forth with their own stories about her that are even juicier. For example, in a remembrance at the Fotolibrarian site that’s worth reprinting nearly in full, Gwyn Headley recalls:

When I worked for Collins (the predecessor of HarperCollins) I was detailed to accompany Alison Uttley to the Children’s Book Fair at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster. She was a sour little old woman, with no small talk, and I was clearly merely a minion.

But I was quite good at publicity, and I’d arranged for everyone attending the fair to be invited to COME AND MEET ALISON UTTLEY. At half hourly intervals the PA system hollered out ‘ALISON UTTLEY!! LITTLE GREY RABBIT AUTHOR!! HERE AT 12!!’

Teachers were whipping their charges into a state of frenzy. Me, I just wanted to sell some books.

We’d placed Uttley on a curtained daïs, and on the dot of 12 the curtain rose. A howling crowd of excited children stormed the stage.

As Uttley hadn’t bothered to listen to a word I’d told her, she was completely unprepared for this. Dimly she perceived an overwhelming mob running at her and with British pluck she unhesitatingly grabbed her duck-handled umbrella and waded into the attack, felling infants right and left.

The kiddies paused, briefly regrouped, then broke up and ran off, screaming in terror. Uttley strode among them, lashing out freely."

Tweeter is the super blog?

In reading the hash tags from the first 140 characters conference, held this week in NYC, Ms. Obie Joe is struck by the possible over-enthusiasm for the Twitter as a building and disrupter in promotion campaigns.

Twitter works not because a new brain wiring distills our attention span into further squashed increments. Rather, Twitter works because, at its best, it provides a consistent stream of information, or with authors, observations that feed into a story. People leave 4,000 and counting congrats on dooce.com when the newest participant is born because her blog has reliably produced content for years.

Online is the fancy tool, but really, people, we keep returning to the same thing used for eons to transfer and translate information: the narrative.

"The fin de siècle/industrial revolution gave us stream of consciousness, the nuclear age gave us post-modernism, and now the information age has produced what? Writers need to experiment with narratives across media in the same way that alternate reality games have experimented with the video game." (@chapmanchapman Ryan Chapman, Macmillan Internet marketing manager)

Use Twitter -- absolutely -- but don't forget the story.

Strategize for the scatter

Everybody's online, huh? You might be hearing that from your publicist, publisher and friends.

Certainly, the range of options seem so vast as to start hitting anything that moves.

Moving the cane to the tip of his boot, Mr. Obie Joe would remind you to not chase, but to strategize. Perhaps your book, or your personality, would not match a Twitter campaign. There are authors who work with "only" a web site. Think through your choices, and then commit fierce. Few things are as disappointing as a blog with no entries. Or a web site with just a landing page. Or a Facebook page with no friends.

A few steps at the dance:
• Familiarize yourself with all tools.
• Determine the typical time commitments for each tool. Twitter is daily, blog tour is intermittent, and so on.
• Use tools to track your progress: how many hits, your search engine position, direct feedback/comments on your sit, etc.
• Coordinate original content. Use you Author Q&A for a blog tour; send a blog essay for a press release; and so on.

Online publicity changes the game from traditional marketing is that you, handsome you, chase the consumer in a way that engages them over the long-term. Not for the one-time product buy. Many of Mr. Obie Joe's people work with us not just to sell their book, but to to build their career so their next book sells, too.

Another way social networks sells your book

There's a general sense that the participation in social networks sell books in a vague, sort-of by association way. Feeding into the "you have to hear it 8 times before you buy the new detergent" advertising theory.

Sure, it can't harm to put a jpg of your book cover on your Facebook, or to troll for other Facebookers who love the same things you do, therefore lining up to buy your book.

There are several social networks for professionals. These are proving to find profitable products for their members. Recently, one of Obie Joe's authors, a physician, was approached to direct a CME course in partnership with Sermo and a respected medical school. His book would be included as well as compensation for his presentation.