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Children’s book writers striking out on their own
September 4, 2010 | 8:33 pm
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By Chris Meadows
The Bookseller has a post looking at decisions by a number of “stranded” established children’s authors to follow in the footsteps of writers like J.A. Konrath and Seth Godin to publish on their own or through smaller presses rather than the traditional publishing houses that had previously published them.
"A number of established authors are not being published who would have been published five years ago and are looking at different ways to market,” [children’s author Lucy Daniel Raby] said.
Raby has bought back the rights to her Nickolai of the North series, which she now publishes herself through Tinkerbell Books.
The article refers to the traditional publishing houses as “risk-averse” but does not really go into any level of detail as to why these “stranded” authors are not being published through them anymore. It would have been interesting to have that information as background for the rest of the piece.
Children’s books seem to be in a bit of an odd position, given that about the only time these books seem to impinge upon adult consciousness is when they become runaway bestsellers like the Harry Potter or Twilight books, or are made into movies like Percy Jackson. I’m not sure I could name more than one or two other children’s book series, and that’s only because I’ve seen them in bookstore displays.
I wonder if that has something to do with why publishers are so “risk averse” right now? It must be tricky marketing books to kids when adults are the ones who for the most part hold the purse strings.
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No trickier than marketing anything else relating to kids, such as toys or food or whatever. It’s viral marketing. If something catches on and the kids decide they want it, trust me, the adults in their loves will hear about it
The reason these books aren’t being published is because they aren’t sell enough to make the profit the publishers demand.
One of the problems with publishing since the conglomerates have taken over the publishing houses is that what once was a successful number of books sold now is too low, and the number of people buying books hasn’t really risen greatly except for the blockbuster books.
And, sadly, books by celebrities have that marketing hook the average writer will never have so their books keep appearing and succeeding on a financial scale while writers with smaller audience but great books are dumped at an alarming rate.
Also, the children’s market is very traditional so the backlist of the Dr Seuss, Scary, etc., books take a good chunk of the market away from the newer writers.
Add to this the blockbusters which everyone buys, and there’s little room for the other writers.
I suspect the real reason behind this need to strike it out alone is basically because the major publishing house business model simply does not work well for smaller print run books.
Even if they make money, the publishing houses cannot give the necessary attention to each and every book they publish while they really can only cope with handling and promoting a small group of mega sellers.
Unfortunately there is no mention of an eBook strategy here. I hope they realise that getting contracted into a smaller publisher that doesn’t have a comprehensive e-strategy will doom them to the same failure as previously.
I do marketing videos and marketing in Florida, and both go hand in hand. You want to be seen in every possible venue related to your book to have any chance of success. All the websites you’re at are called links. The more links you have, the higher Google will rank you on searches. Google is also key. Also you want your book to show up on Google with as manydifferent keywords as possible. Very important also. Plus use photos. You can add your link in the photo description box, and Google will grab that also. To be successful you want your book/product to show up higher on searches than your competition.
Many of my travel videos have been grabbed by other websites, which gives my business even more free exposure and links on Google. Everything is connected. These things are essential for everyone to market their book/products. I will be marketing my first children’s book soon for a Sarasota author, and I believe she is going to be amazed at the sales, provided we get lucky and the timing is right, even with the economy. Good luck everyone, and always be willing to find a way to succeed in your endeavors.