Selling to a Niche Market - Teachers

On Marketing Brand New Teacher

by Carol and Joe Keeney

In the latter part of 2006, the same year our book was published, we started receiving checks from our distributor. While the checks are not big, $300 or less, the feeling that we were doing something right was beneficial to us. Before listing our marketing adventures that brought us this far monetarily, it would be to your advantage to know something about us: Our book is of the academic variety and we had no experience in promoting it; and early efforts to advance our book failed, it was like pouring sweat into a black box that remained perpetually empty; and as a marketing compass, we used The Self Publishing Manual, a great book, however, it catered more toward the general-audience-type book.

We did not get it Brand New Teacher: How to Guide and Teach the Early Grades Using Scripts had to be sold differently than other books. The worm turned, so to speak, when we read Brian Jud’s “Beyond the Bookstore;” We learned the meaning of the word niche and it gave us a roadmap for reorienting our selling efforts. Below is a list of efforts that should have targeted academic education from the beginning:

• Mailed pre-published copies to reviewers such as Publisher’s weekly.
• Mailed post-publication books to reviewers and wholesalers.
• Contracted with the distributor Atlas Books, who promised to move our books to booksellers and wholesalers.
• Participated in PMA mailing programs to reviewers and schools.
• Sent press releases with publicity kit to major newspapers across the country
• Carol went into chat forums on the internet to help new teachers
• We set up a web site http://www.brandnewteachr.com/ for the book and use Link Metro for link exchanges;
• Carol made contact with a school principal enabling her to sell books to Hartford schools and do a seminar for new teachers.
• Carol got a review in a local newspaper.
• We participated in the CT library association through CAPA
• We sent a book to the First Lady Nancy Bush because of her interest in education.
• We placed an ad in New York Teacher, the union newspaper for the New York City Schools at the start of the new school year
• CAPA member Dennis Schleicher helped us with Amazon to increase our ranking and sales.
• Carol did a book signing at Barnes and Noble in Norwalk
• We visited bookstores and got some of them to stock our books.
• We have approached a School Supply Company to include us in their catalog
• We contacted wholesalers more geared toward academic education.

We got a handful of review requests from our mailings; the ad we had in New York Teacher sold about 50 books; orders through the distributor came as a direct result of our personal contact with wholesalers; Carol, through her Internet forums, drove some traffic to Amazon; ditto for Dennis and his Amazon positioning strategies; Carol’s seminar sold 15 books to the Hartford school system. As you can see, our cash producing activities were spotty; it did however inspire us to do more.

Doing-more will always be our biggest challenge. Carol likes to say, “We say to the universe give-me, give-me…and in return…the universe says give-me, give-me, back.” What this means is that the universe wants its share first. Our early non-rewarded efforts are how we paid our share to the universe. The other side of the coin is about the reward. From our experience the universe pays back synergistically. It gives us more than what we put in. We know it because the efforts we put forth are less than the size of our checks. The only answer we have for this is that when we do something it eventually attracts something else in the universe. The other moral of the story is to keep-doing.

How we get enthused to market our book is through reading. In addition to Brian Jud’s inspiring book, John Kremer’s One Thousand Ways to Market Your Book is filled with ideas that have a tendency to motivate us. Our CAPA membership, however, is our number one source for getting new ideas and inspiration; we hardly miss a meeting. Currently, we are exhibiting our book at the New England College Bookstore show, and Carol is planning a seminar in Ridgefield for new teachers, all of this because of our association with CAPA. Thank you CAPA.

Carol Keeney has thirty-years experience teaching early childhood grades. Many years were spent as a first grade teacher in the New York City school system. While tenured with the school system, Carol helped develop a science curriculum at the request of her school district. She spent many years as an adjunct professor at the College of New Rochelle in New York, and while tenured, has critiqued peer professors at the request of the college. She is currently working as an Adjunct Professor at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut. Carol holds an MS degree in Education from St. John's University. She was nominated and listed in the Who's Who of American Teachers.She has developed and taught many courses. Her favorites are Methods of Teaching Early childhood Education, Methods of Teaching Reading to Normal and Special Children and Methods of Teaching Creative Arts in the Classroom.

CAPA University

4^th Annual CAPA University a Success
by Peggy Gaffney

On May 12 authors and potential authors gathered at the Hartford Steam Boiler Conference Center for an exceptional professional development day. The sellout crowd had the rare opportunity to hear from keynote speaker Marcella A. Smith, Director of Small Press and Vendor Relations for Barnes & Noble. Her talk and the questions she answered in the follow-up session dealt with the specific nuts and bolts of getting your book onto the shelves of Barnes & Noble.

This was followed with a panel of 14 agents and marketing experts who took questions from the group with topics on how to get an agent and what will an agent do for them. They were informed that bribes and unannounced visits to their homes are not the way to get an agent to read your book. They were also told that in today’s market, before an agent even sees the work it had better be polished to perfection.

The face to face, one on one 15 minute meetings between agents and participants where writers could pitch their books followed. Those agents attending were: Lauren E. Abramo from Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency, Marilyn Allen from Allen O’Shea Literary Partners, Kathi Paton from Kathi J. Paton Literary Agency, Rebecca Strauss from McIntosh & Otis, Regina Brooks from Serendipity Literary Agency, Katharine Sands from Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Rita Rosenkranz from Rita Rosenkranz Literary Agency, Gina Panettieri, Exec. Editor (owner/founder) Talcott Notch Literary Services, Jack Scovil from Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency, Maya Rock from Writers House, Dr. Uwe Stender from TriadaUS Literary Agency, Mary Beth Chappel from Zachary Shuster Hrmsworth, Eric Kampmann from Midpoint Trade Books, and Brian Jud from Book Marketing Works.

Small group breakout sessions were held throughout the day. Each speaker covered a different genre or approach. They were: Building Worlds and Making Magic with Annie Kelleher, RX for a Healthy Plot with Kristi Petersen, Don’t Murder Your Mystery! With Roberta Isleib, How to Write an Irressistible non-Fiction Book Proposal with Rita Rosenkranz, Writing for the Op-Ed Page with James Smith, Writing on Spec for Hollywood: Screen Writing Dos and Don’ts with Peter Fox, Getting it onto the Library Shelf panel with David Garnes, Jim Benn & Mary Etter, A Little Help from Our Friends panel discussion, Publishing in More than one Genre with Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Working with a Book Printer with Tom Campbell, Working with an Agent with Gina Panettieri, To Market, To Market: Finding Freelance Markets with Patricia D’Ascoli, Create a Buzz and Make Money Using Amazon. Com with Dennis Schleicher, Positioning, Positioning, Positioning! with Deborah Werksman and a last minute addition Writing the Graphic Novel with Mark Ellis and Melissa Martin Ellis.

With all these sessions plus good food and good company, the day was declared a success by all.

Peggy Gaffney serves as co-editor of The Authority and is the author of several knitting books in The Crafty Dog - Knits series published by Kanine Knits. She has spent almost 40 years showing dogs and has had a knitting design studio specializing in dog portraits in knitting since 1995. She is a former columnist for both the AKC Gazette and the Samoyed Quarterly.