Selling Children's Books
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Selling Children's Books
Selling your self-published children's book is going to be a challenge. After all, even traditional publishers put out books that don't sell. Selling books that you paid for, without all the contacts and advertising resources a traditional publisher has at hand, will be challenging.
That's the main point I try to make with this section of the site. Don't assume that having your book in print form means significant numbers of people will buy it - no less, find it. Selling children's books will require you putting a lot of sweat and blood (and brains) into the effort.
I solicited people who are selling children's books of their own on their own to tell about their experience. And here's what I'm learning...
Contrary to what I used to believe, some people are self-publishing children's books and doing so successfully. ("Successfully" might not mean they're making a lot - or even any - money. It means they're glad they did it.)
Here's what else I'm learning: selling children's books you've published requires having a plan, a multi-faceted plan. It will likely include:
- Press releases (written and sent by you)
- Interviews (solicited and arranged by you)
- Public appearances (booked and performed by you)
- A website (built and maintained by you)
Word of the day: Synergy
That's a word you hear a lot in business circles. Here's a definition I found (at answers.com):
The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
The word "confluence" has much the same meaning, as in "confluence of interests."
I'm impressed by the self-publisher who set his rhyming children's book in Kalamazoo...then started selling children's books - in quantity - in Kalamazoo. I'm impressed by the successful photographer who writes a children's book featuring her own photographs. I'm impressed by the entomologist who writes a non-fiction kids' book about bugs.
Synergy. Confluence. Credibility.
I'm impressed by websites that capture the synergy an author is trying to maximize. And I'm impressed when it's clear that an author realizes his/her website needs no less structure than his/her book.
I've seen some examples of websites selling children's books poorly.
These websites have only a page or two. One page describes the book as the most wonderful book ever written. The other page is an order form.
Can you say, "Wishful thinking"?
Here's one of the greatest blogs you could ever hope to see
It's called Cynsations, by a woman named Cynthia Leitich Smith. It gets a heck of a lot of traffic. She writes at length about children's books. She also happens to be...
...a children's book author. Cynthia builds amazing credibility by writing so much and so positively about other people's writing. She gives away a lot of information and knowledge and praise for free.
That generosity of spirit makes visitors to her site much more likely to buy Cynthia's books. Doesn't that make sense?
My site
The site you're on gets a heck of a lot of traffic too. I've built my own audience. Google ranks me highly and sends a lot of searchers here.
Think of a website as a net. The bigger it is, the more the search engines find it and point people to a particular page. Big (well-designed) site, more visitors. Little site, no visitors.
This will be the 141st page on the site. It won't be the last.
If I were selling children's books of my own (and believe me, I plan to!), this site would be a great tool with which to do so.
Let's talk about synergy again
Have you visited Animal Gambill's site yet?
Animal (who also goes by the name Shannon), writes about her self-publishing experience on this site.
Her self-published picture book, Riley's Bow Wow Blast
A children's book about a dog in support of an organization teaching children to be kind to animals. Now that's synergy!
Now, I know more about websites than I do about self-publishing and selling children's books. I know that if you just slap up a website offering a product, no one's going to buy it. In fact....
No one's going to find it. That is, except for the precious few people you tell to go to it.
So if you've decided you need a website, please realize also that you're going to need a website that works. Want to know how I built this one?
I LOVE the outfit that I used to build this website
A web host is the company that makes your site available on their "servers." It's usually a very passive relationship. You upload your content, they put it on the net. You really only deal with them on technical troubles. They do nothing to help you attract traffic.
The outfit I use does things that no other web host does.
- They show you how to select and research a website topic
- They show you how to structure your website so that search engines will find it
- They show you what keywords web searchers are punching in relating to your topic
- They give you the tools to make creating a website simple, not daunting...and they show you how to use them
Their results are impressive. With their approach, you can focus on what you like to focus on: the writing.
My experience? I built this site for selling children's books I intended to self-publish. But I've had so much fun building and growing the site (and making money off the advertising and books and magazines written by others that I sell) that I haven't even gotten around yet to selling my own books.
And I'm fine with that! Because I know I'm building a bigger and bigger audience that will allow me to sell still more books down the road.
A word about "Web Designers...Since I've learned how to create a website, I've developed an eye for websites that don't work. (There are more sites that don't work than do!) Oftentimes they're put up by talented, expensive Web Designers who create brilliant functionality and an eye-catching look.
They don't attract traffic! That's because Web Designers are designers. Your site will look good, but Google couldn't care less how a site looks. Google looks for words. Searchers search with words.
A good site will always have lots of words. In the web business, we call that content.
If you're going to self-publish, selling children's books in this day and age pretty much requires a website. If you're going to put up a website, put up one that works.
Have you ever asked yourself how the webpages that show up at the top of search rankings manage to do so? After all, you've never clicked on the link that came up 56,481 in the search results rankings, have you?
Try this. Highlight and copy these words:
Now paste them into this search box.
On the day I'm writing this, Google brings back 538,000 results. This site comes in #1 and #2.
How'd you do that?
I just used the tools that this web hosting company gave me. (And I used them well, if I do say so myself.)
Here's a link to the company:
http://infopublishing.sitesell.com/writingsuccess.html
So think about that word "synergy" again. What subjects do you know about? Is there any confluence between what you know about and the children's book you've written (or are planning to write)? And could you write more expansively on the subject for a website you own?
A website on which you could be:
- selling your children's book
- selling children's books written by others (for commission)
- posting pay-per-click advertising
- sharing your specialized knowledge with an information hungry world
Plan a web presence that will support your self-publishing efforts. Give people a reason and a chance to like you and your writing...before you ask them to lay out their hard-earned money.
