Eight years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues. Read about their Mission & History HERE.

One fun way to participate is to join the Twitter party that takes place on January 29 at 9:00 pm EST/8:00 pm CST/6:00 PM PST.

This epically fun and fast-paced hour includes multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas.

And no epic celebration would be complete without PRIZES!! During the Twitter Party, MCBD will be giving away an 8-Book Bundle EVERY 5 MINUTES plus Bonus Prizes as well! *** US and Global participants welcome. ** (Non-USA winners will be sent PDFs instead of physical copies)

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the conversation, connect with like-minded folks, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians.

To join the party, Register here!

For a giant list of books and their reviews, go visit the Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCBD) website.

All of this is made possible by the fabulous sponsors of MCBD; please make note of them here:

MCBD 2021 is honored to be Supported by these Medallion Sponsors!

FOUNDER’S CIRCLE: Mia Wenjen (Prgamaticmom) and Valarie Budayr’s (Audreypress.com)

Platinum Sponsors: Language Lizard Bilingual Books in 50+ Languages, Author Deedee Cummings and Make A Way Media

Gold Sponsors: Barefoot Books, Candlewick Press, Capstone,  Hoopoe Books,  KidLitTV, Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.

Silver Sponsors: Charlotte Riggle, Connecticut Association of School Librarians, Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle, Pack-N-Go Girls

Bronze Sponsors: Agatha Rodi and AMELIE is IMPRESSED!, Barnes Brothers Books, Create and Educate Solutions, LLC, Dreambuilt Books, Dyesha and Triesha McCants/McCants Squared, Redfin Real Estate, Snowflake Stories, Star Bright Books, TimTimTom Bilingual Personalized Books, Author Vivian Kirkfield, Wisdom Tales Press, My Well Read Child 

MCBD 2021 is honored to be Supported by these Author Sponsors!

Poster Artist: Nat Iwata

Authors: Author Afsaneh Moradian, Author Alva Sachs & Three Wishes Publishing Company, Author Angeliki Stamatopoulou-Pedersen, Author Anna Olswanger, Author Casey Bell , Author Claudine Norden, Author Debbie Dadey, Author Diana Huang & Intrepids,  Author Eugenia Chu & Brandon goes to Beijing, Green Kids Club,  Author Gwen Jackson, Author Janet Balletta, Author Josh Funk, Author Julia Inserro, Karter Johnson & Popcorn and Books, Author Kathleen Burkinshaw & The Last Cherry Blossom, Author Keila Dawson, Maya/Neel Adventures with Culture Groove, Author Mia Wenjen, Michael Genhart, Nancy Tupper Ling, Author Natalie Murray, Natalie McDonald-Perkins, Author Natasha Yim, Author Phe Lang and Me On The Page Publishing,Sandra Elaine Scott, Author Shoumi Sen & From The Toddler Diaries, SISSY GOES TINY by Rebecca Flansburg and B.A. Norrgard, Susan Schaefer Bernardo & Illustrator Courtenay Fletcher,  Tales of the Five Enchanted Mermaids, Author Theresa Mackiewicz, Tonya Duncan and the Sophie Washington Book Series, Author Toshia Stelivan, Valerie Williams-Sanchez & The Cocoa Kids Collection Books©, Author Vanessa Womack, MBA, Author Veronica Appleton & the Journey to Appleville book series

MCBD 2021 is Honored to be Supported by our CoHosts and Global CoHosts!

MCBD 2021 is Honored to be Supported by these Media Partners!

Check out MCBD’s Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board!

Plus, here are some awesome FREE RESOURCES from Multicultural Children’s Book Day:

Diversity Book Lists & Activities for Teachers and Parents

Homeschool Diverse Kidlit Booklist & Activity Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Activism and Activists Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Empathy Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Kindness Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Physical and Developmental Challenges Kit

FREE Teacher Classroom Poverty Kit

Gallery of Our Free Posters

FREE Diversity Book for Classrooms Program

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff, right? It really is an amazing event, and the focus is on promoting diverse books and bringing lots of great materials to teachers and librarians as well.

Finally, to take a look at the books I reviewed as part of this event, you can read about them in the following posts:

THE PIRATE PRINCESS by Alva Sachs, illustrated by Patricia Krebs

FILIPINO CELEBRATIONS by Liana Romulo, illustrated by Corzaon Dandan-Albano

KOREAN CHILDREN’S FAVORITE STORIES by Kim So-Un, illustrated by Jeong Kyoung-Sim

LET’S LEARN KOREAN by Laura Armitage (edited by Tina Cho)

The post It’s Multicultural Children’s Book Day! appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

Occasionally, I would run across an article online talking about Twitter pitch parties—and again, my response was, “Huh?”

Why Children’s Writers Should Use Twitter

It turns out there are some good reasons to hang out on Twitter:

·  Industry folks (agents and editors) are active on Twitter

·  Chats are a great way to connect with other writers

·  Great source for finding mentorships, critiques, and freebies

·  It’s possible to connect with influencers

·  Benefits are immediate, even without followers

·  Doubles as an up-to-the-minute source of breaking news

Twitter is viewed as the place to be to pick up insights from those in the publishing industry.

Many agents and editors hang out on Twitter, and most allow their comments (“tweets”) to be public. In other words, you can see what they are posting even if you don’t follow one another.

If you are looking for information about what kind of stories agents and editors are looking for, Twitter is a treasure trove of clues. Many industry folks will post their manuscript wish lists here, and use the hashtag #MSWL.

Also, sometimes an agent will announce they are open to submissions on Twitter—and this is the only place they share this information.

The other huge feature of Twitter for writers are pitch parties. Many writers credit a pitch party as the way they landed their agent, or got a publishing contract. Author K.L. Kranes provides a nice overview of pitch parties in her blog post.

Connect With Other Writers

Another useful feature of Twitter is it offers a way to connect with a community of other children’s writers in a meaningful way.

There are regularly scheduled chats that take place where people gather just to chat. The moderators usually propose a topic a help keep the discussion going. It’s a place to ask questions, share tips, and build friendships.

By participating on a regular basis, you will often find a number of people who show up on a regular basis. As long as you participate (in a helpful and friendly way—which of course you will!) you will quickly find yourself building meaningful relationships among those who show up.

Some Twitter chats for kidlit writers include:

• #kidlit chat on Tuesdays 6-9 pm ET
• #PBChat Wednesdays 7-9 pm ET
• #MGLitChat Thursdays 9 PM ET
• #KidlitArt Thursdays 9 PM ET
• #YALitChat (Does not appear to be currently active)

Chats can be confusing to follow. The tweets can come through your feed at a fast and furious pace. You can just do a search for the hashtag and watch what comes through—but it can get pretty confusing. It helps if you click on the “Latest” tab to keep things in order.

There are tools available to help you organize your feed that can make chats easier to follow. The one I’ve used is Tweetdeck. It is owned by Twitter (and it’s free!) so it’s easy to integrate with your account. You just search for the chat and it will create a new column showing tweets with that hashtag.

Connect With Industry Influencers

One of Twitter’s most valuable features is that you can reach out to anyone without needing some kind of connection first.

So, for example, let’s say you admire a certain children’s book author who is seen as successful or of some renown. I’ll use Laurie Halse Anderson, author of many award-winning books, including Shout, Speak, and Chains, as an example.  She has over 56,000 followers. Yet, if you were to comment on one of her tweets, or reach out to her, there’s a good chance she will respond.

I’ve reached out to influential people in other industries, even sometimes direct messaging them, and had them respond. It’s so exciting to see a reply—it’s like shaking their hand (or I guess maybe doing an elbow bump)—and experiencing a real connection.

Keep in mind that you should never abuse these opportunities. Always be respectful and polite, and don’t just bombard people with Tweets to try to get their attention. But if you have a legitimate comment or question, then by all means, go ahead and reach out. (Keep in mind some do not allow DMs, but a surprisingly large number of people do).

Look For Opportunities and Resources

If you follow a bunch of other writers and publishing folks in the kidlit world, your feed will be filled with news about books and events related to kidlit.

Children’s authors are always tweeting about other people’s books. Many feature other authors on their websites, and announce the publication of a post on Twitter. Oftentimes, this is also accompanied by opportunities for a free copy of the featured author’s book. Authors also give away manuscript critiques as a way to help out other writers.

If you check your feed regularly, keep an eye out for these opportunities! Because who doesn’t love free stuff?

Authors and publishing folks also share great resources about the world of kidlit all the time. There might be an interesting webinar coming up, or a course, or a helpful article.

A Huge Following is Not Necessary

One of the nice things about Twitter (although it can also have its downsides) is that everything is available to everyone. You don’t have to follow someone to see their tweets. If you want to know what Jason Reynolds is up to, all you have to do is click on his account and you can see everything he has tweeted, retweeted, or commented on.

If you want to regularly see what someone is up to on Twitter, then all you have to do is follow them. No request necessary. Just click “Follow.” Done.

Also, following other people is a great way to gain followers. Okay, maybe not Jason Reynolds, as he is a pretty busy guy. (He has almost 100,000 followers, but he only follows less than 2,000). But for the average person on Twitter, that’s all it takes.

You Don’t Need a Lot of Time

How long does it take to read 280 characters? About 10 seconds, right? So you can skim through a whole bunch of tweets in a short amount of time.

Even if you just spend 10 minutes, you can definitely get a quick hit on what’s going on in your feed.

Of course, the hard part is limiting yourself to 10 minutes. Twitter, like other social media, can generate some interesting conversations, and it’s easy to start down a trail and not come out for several minutes. Hours, even.

Setting a timer might be a good idea, to remind you to get back to doing other things. Like writing.

How to Manage Your Feed

Looking at your Twitter feed can feel like an avalanche of information coming at you, with no rhyme or reason to it.

One way skilled Twitter users control their feed is through the use of lists.

Basically, you can create lists based on whatever criteria you want. So, for example, you could create a group for all the picture book writers you follow. Or you could create a list of agents.

After you create a list, you can simply click on it (from the left-side menu). Twitter will then show you activity from people on that list.

Here are a couple of helpful articles that explain how to set up lists on Twitter.

How to Set Up Twitter Lists and Regain Some Sanity

How to Create and Manage Twitter Lists

Pay attention to what they say about whether to keep your lists private or public.

The one big downside of creating lists is there is no way (at least that I have found) to do this in bulk. So if you are following thousands, organizing everyone into lists will be a monumental task. The best thing is to do it a bit at a time. And the earlier you start the practice, the better!

Try to Be a Good Friend

Twitter provides the best value when you remember to use it as a way to build relationships. Meaningful relationships, not just for the mutually beneficial stuff.

Think of it as a way to become friends with a lot of people you might never meet in person. Talk to others in ways that are helpful, or supportive, or just plain friendly. Boost other people’s tweets that are worth boosting by retweeting them. Respond to questions and participate in polls.

And stay away from any unpleasant or snarky threads. Those don’t serve anyone.

Treat others how you would like to be treated. Be yourself. Don’t be self-serving, because people will pick up on it and then nobody will want to be your friend.

Bonus Tip: Catch Breaking News

If you want to get a quick summary of the latest news or hot trend of the day, Twitter is a great source. Just check out the What’s Happening feed and you’ll get up-to-the-minute highlights. Some of it will be serious news, some of it will be ridiculous, and some will be just plain head-scratchers.

So put those 280 characters to good use. Children’s writers should use Twitter to make some new friends, build a community, and enjoy the funny comments.

Just try to stop after ten minutes!

The post How Children’s Authors Should Use Twitter appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

Or maybe you participated in a fundraiser for your school, and went door-to-door selling candy bars that tasted like chalk, or cookie dough, or some other mediocre food product?

As a kid, I absolutely dreaded Girl Scout cookie season. Even though many people were actually happy to buy Thin Mints and Do-See-Does, the “no thank yous” always felt I had failed somehow.

The fear of rejection loomed large every time I walked up to someone’s house and knocked on their door. I would go to maybe five houses before calling it quits.

When my own children became Girl Scouts I dreaded cookie season all over again! It was as if I was transported back to my 8-year-old self.

Why So Many of Us Hate Selling

We Hate Setting Ourselves up for Rejection

I think it is that fear of rejection that makes being a salesperson so hard. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it is for me.

It’s why it’s so hard to ask people out on dates, or try out for a part in the school play.

You are being somewhat (or a lot) vulnerable, and the odds of hearing “No” are pretty high.

And while we know we shouldn’t care, or take it personally (well, in the case of being turned down for a date it kind of is personal), it still hurts.

But there are other reasons many hate the idea of selling.

It Feels Manipulative

The old image of the “snake oil salesman” persists, despite the fact that it’s been a hundred years or more since anyone last tried to sell snake oil.

People don’t like trying get others to do something they don’t necessarily want to do. The “snake oil” term takes it a step further—when someone tries to deceive people into buying a bogus product.

(Here’s an interesting aside, it turns out actual snake oil does have some legitimate curative properties! It can actually help alleviate joint pain and perhaps even help boost cognitive abilities).

People Find it Annoying

Sales calls, letters, or online messages ARE annoying. Getting people to buy generally requires getting a product in front of them several times before they finally take action and buy.

If you are thinking of getting a new pair of running shoes, and you do a search online, what happens? You are inundated with ads for running shoes.

I remember the first time I went to a car dealership when I was looking to buy a car. The salesman I talked to called me a dozen times after that to “check up on me” and try to get the sale.

That was annoying.

Most of us don’t want to be that way.

How to Sell Your Book Without Selling

The bottom line is, if you don’t like selling because it feels fake, dishonest, or pushy, then don’t be any of those things.

None of those things are necessary for marketing your book.

Don’t Think of it As Marketing Your Children’s Book

Instead, think about why you wrote your book, and who it is for. Do you want to inspire children to face their fears? Be kind? Learn how to become a meteorologist?

When you approach your potential audience with the intention of learning what they want, and how you can serve them, it stops being about sales. It starts being about helping.

I am 100 percent sure that when you are trying to help others, you don’t feel fake, dishonest, or pushy.

Let go of the perception that marketing as: “would you like to buy my book?” Instead, think of it as “would you like some inspiration?” Or perhaps, “Would you like to laugh?” Or even “Do you love studying weather as much as I do?”

Attract people who are interested in what you write about

Another way to shift away from a mindset of selling is to focus on trying to build a community.

Again, put your energy toward trying to gather people because of a shared interest, and not because you are trying to sell them something. It’s an invitation to enjoy something together.

Don’t worry if you don’t have some big, life-changing cause. You can create something meaningful by building a community of people whose children love fairies or dragons, for example.

Encouraging that interest, sharing stories about that interest, creates excitement and joy.

And if you have a book that features fairies or dragons, well, your community will be eager to read it.

No selling required.

Be helpful

Remember while your audience is children, the buyers of your book are adults. They are parents, teachers, librarians, people with children in their lives.

Think about how you can be helpful to your buying audience.

For example, teachers are always looking for new ways to engage with their students. Providing ideas for how to interact with your books in the classroom would be very helpful to teachers.

If your book is for an older audience, you could provide discussion or writing prompts. If it’s for younger children, coloring pages are always welcome.

For the parents, think about what they would find useful. Using the fairy and dragon example, you could come up with ideas for ways to design a birthday party with fairy or dragon theme. Craft activities are another popular option. You could offer instructions for building fairy houses or dragon lairs.

You may think none of these actions are going to help you actually sell books.

But if you create a community around you and your books, and become a resource for your readers and buyers, you are helping to sell books.

People will be happy to support you and buy your books, and tell other people about your books, if you have developed authentic relationships with them.

A Better Way to Sell Girl Scout Cookies

When my girls became Girl Scouts and joined the ranks of cookie sellers, I was not enthusiastic about reliving this episode of my life.

But then I discovered people had figured out a way to sell cookies without having to be a salesperson.

Instead of going door-to-door, Girl Scouts could set up shop in front of stores (with the store’s permission, of course) and let the customers come to them.

If someone was interested in buying, they would approach the girls and ask if they could buy cookies.

Gone was the horrible task of facing rejection house after house. Gone was the feeling of trying to manipulate people into buying something they didn’t want.

Professsional book marketer Tim Grahl, in his book Your First 1000 Copies, boils down marketing to two simple concepts:

(1) creating lasting connections with people through

(2) a focus on being relentlessly helpful.

So be like the Girls Scouts of today. Create a community and focus on how you can serve that community.

Remember, providing stories about fairies and dragons is being helpful—maybe even more helpful than offering boxes of Thin Mints for sale.

The post How to Market Your Children’s Book if You Hate Sales appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

Probably more than you realize.

An article by Influencer Marketing Hub, a marketing and advertising resource company, listed over 50 different platforms.

The thing is, the point of the article was to provide information about which platforms could be useful for marketing a brand—not an exhaustive list of social media platforms.

In other words, keeping up with social media is simply overwhelming.

Which is a big reason why many children’s authors tend to shy away from actively using it to build influence for their books and their brand.

But nowadays (and right now it’s 2020), the prevailing opinion about social media is that you need to be active in it in some way.

Obviously, you can’t be on 50 different platforms. That’s a sure-fire way to send you into an internet coma.

As a children’s writer, where should you focus your attention? Especially if you are just starting out?

Start With Just One

Eventually, you will probably need to have a presence on more than one platform. Ideally, you should work up to being active on the big three: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

But where do you start?

Because the best way to get comfortable with anything new is to focus on one thing at a time, the best strategy is to pick one and let the others wait.

Each different platform has its own personality. They have their own quirks that may make one more appealing to you than another.

Also, deciding where to focus your time and energy should depend on what your goals are.

Decide What Your Goals Are

Before you plunge ahead and start posting photos of your dog reading your book on Instagram, or sharing memes on Twitter, you need to figure out what you want to accomplish first.

Here’s a pro tip: your goal is not to sell books.

I mean, yes, you do want to try to get your book into the hands of as many people as possible. But don’t start tweeting and posting messages asking people to buy your books.

As I discussed in my post Do Children’s Authors Need to Use Social Media? the point of being an active social media user is not all about self-promotion and selling.

So what is the point?

You could focus on trying to reach potential readers. (In the case of any genres besides YA, this really means potential buyers, such as parents, teachers, and librarians).

Maybe you want to reach out to agents and editors, and tap into the latest news and trends in publishing.

Or you could be interested in meeting other writers, especially in your genre of choice. (Of course, you may write for different genres, which just means you will throw your net a little wider).

Knowing your goal is important because it affects how you proceed with your behavior on social media.

Commit to a Regular Schedule

Whenever you are trying to grow your audience, it is super important to stick to a regular schedule. Just as you should be emailing your subscriber list once a week (or at least every couple of weeks), you need to do the same with social media.

(If my last comment about a subscriber list has you scratching your head in confusion, check out my post on Why Children’s Authors Need an Email List).

But unlike emails, you probably need to be doing something more often than once a week. In fact, the best strategy is to be active every day.

(Did your heart just sink a little bit there?)

This is probably one of the reasons why so many people hate having to use social media. It can be a huge time suck! How many times have you decided to quickly browse Twitter and suddenly found yourself caught up in a stream of tweets about some dust up between Chrissy Teigen and, well, whoever the latest person she is involved in a Twitter storm with.

You try to be strong. You even set a timer for Pete’s sake.

But the next thing you know about 15 hours have gone by and you haven’t even finishing posting yet.

So yes, wading into social media does require some discipline.

Try to have a strategy or plan. Designate 10 minutes each day to do one thing on social media. You can actually do quite a bit with 10 minutes, and if you stick to your schedule, you won’t get sucked down a rabbit hole.

Be Generous

Don’t just post your own stuff. One way to build up goodwill and connections is to share other people’s stuff.

Whenever you run across something that you think would be useful to your audience, share it with them. This is a way to support others you are connected with, and provide value to your own audience.

Remember you want to be adding value. That means going into social media with an eye toward looking for ways you can help others in some way.

When you keep being that person who is spreading goodwill, providing helpful information, and just being an overall positive member of society, not only are you being an excellent human being, you are building up a community.

Taking the Plunge Into a Social Media Strategy

While I did start this post by scaring you with the news that there are over 50 social media platforms, clearly not all of them are relevant to you.

The ones to consider exploring are all platforms you have heard about. Chances are you are at least somewhat active in one or two of them.

For children’s authors, here’s what I have determined are the best platforms to use on a regular basis.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Pinterest

But remember—just start with ONE.

Next I’m going to dig deeper into each of these platforms and explore how best to get started using them.

The post How to Effectively Use Social Media as a Children’s Author appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

A lot of children’s authors say they do.

Personally, I resisted joining any social media platforms for years. I’m a pretty private person, and why would anyone want to know about my ordinary life? Sure, I could have talked about the time a feral cat gifted us with a litter of kittens under our porch.

Or how my daughter’s “Operation Get Mom and Dad to Let Us Have a Dog” was going. (Ultimately quite successful, in case you’re wondering).

Who would want to see that besides my family and maybe the cat lady down the street?

Still, authors are being told all the time they need to be on social media.

But do you really? And if so, how do you go about doing it?

Don’t Use Your Kids as Your Model

While Facebook came around before my kids were old enough to be on the internet, many of the other platforms came of age just as my children did.

Suddenly my 11-year-old was begging my husband and I to let her have an Instagram account. When we finally gave in (she is VERY persuasive), we watched in horror as she got sucked into a world that affected her self-esteem (and not in a good way) and started taking up hours of her time.

So is it any wonder that so many of us find social media so distasteful? It literally has the power to ruin lives.

But here’s the thing: we are adults. And while plenty of adults misuse and abuse social media, WE DON’T HAVE TO.

My kids have Snapchat streaks and worry about “likes” on Instagram. They see people curating perfect images of themselves on social media that makes everyone feel inadequate.

A 16-year-old’s use of social media is not the model you should be following.

Most kids are focusing on building up the number of followers they have and getting “likes” on their posts.

It’s not just about getting lots and lots and lots of followers

Use Social Media for Good

Rather than racking up “vanity metrics” such as meaningless likes, you should focus on the positive and useful aspects of social media.

(I feel your skeptism–just hear me out!)

With social media, we have a way to potentially reach millions of people (actually, billions). You can connect with people who share your interests, you can develop friendships, and gain access to hilarious memes (definitely a benefit, right?).

People with niche and obscure interests have discovered they are not alone. For example, one Instagram account that posts pictures of airplanes has over 66,000 followers! (That is not a typo). It’s as if all the toddlers who used to love watching construction equipment graduated to Airbus and Boeing planes.

Finding people who share common interests is wonderful. It’s fun to connect.

If you approach using social media to make meaningful connections and build a community, you will find it to largely be a positive experience. Share posts that are helpful, informative, and entertaining—not only will you be sharing good cheer and happiness, you’ll connect with people who resonate with you and your work.

Don’t Use Social Media to Sell Books

The reason many people are wary of social media is because it can feel icky to engage in self-promotion and selling.

So here’s how you avoid that uncomfortable feeling that can come from trying to sell books to your followers:

Don’t try to sell.

The fact is, building up a huge social media following is actually not the key to selling more books. Book marketer Tim Grahl  did some number tracking. In one example, he calculated the number of sales that could be attributed to one client’s 160,000 Twitter followers.

The answer: 400 books.

Now 400 books is nothing to sneeze at. But from a group of 160,000, only 1 out of every 400 people purchased a book.

That’s not a great return on your time and efforts.

Focus on Building Your Community

In a different post, I laid out the importance of building an author platform. In it, I talk about how having a social media presence is an important piece of your platform.

But the focus of all the articles is about how to connect with your audience. Using your author platform to create genuine and meaningful relationships with your readers is what will ultimately help with the sale of your books.

But your best strategy is not to start bombarding your followers and friends with calls to buy your book. That is exactly the kind of behavior that leaves us feeling icky and salesy.

Instead, if you have worked hard to connect with potential readers, when you have a book, you can celebrate with your community.

And because they are part of your squad, many of them will want to buy your book. You will hardly even need to ask them.

So just as the antagonist in many books actually end up having some redeeming qualities, the same goes for social media.

Find the good in it—and nurture those parts of it. Along the way you will also be more likely to sell some books.

What do you think? Are you convinced that it’s worth your time and energy to cultivate a community through social media? Let me know in the comments!

The post Do Children’s Authors Need to Use Social Media? appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

Is an Email List Really Necessary?

In the world of social media, there is always something new and exciting coming down the pipeline. I still remember when Instagram just started, and my middle-school-aged child begged my husband and I to allow her to open an account.

It was a way to connect with others, and she and her peers worked hard to build up their follower list. Then there was Snapchat, which changed the nature of communication between those under the age of 25. While the exchanges between friends are pretty low in substance, heaven forbid you should break your Snapchat streak!

Some people have used social media platforms to support and grow their fan base and their income along with it. But there is something ephemeral and impermanent about relationships built on social media.

If you are interested in first reading about creating an author platform and all that it entails, including an email list, check out my blog post about author platforms here.

When you rely solely on social media for your traffic, if the algorithm suddenly changes, your ability to connect with your followers can shift from the thousands one day to less than a hundred the next.

But none of this is true for email.

Old-Fashioned Email is Still the Best Tool

I admit it’s not exciting.

When someone gives you permission to email them, you have access to a channel of communication that you control. No outside forces are monitoring what you are sharing with your email list.

Plus, you have the ability to share deeper, more authentic, and meaningful messages through email. There are no restrictions on how long your message can be. And as writers, this plays to our strengths.

But why have one in the first place?

In a word: connection.

Do not think of your email list as a group of potential buyers. Instead, think of your subscribers as your potential fans. Or, as my daughter likes to say, squad.

If you can craft regular messages to your subscribers that builds a rapport with them, allows them to get to know you on a meaningful level, then your relationship becomes something much deeper.

Rather than a group of people who might buy your books, your subscribers become your friends and champions. The show up to your events, tell you what they want to read, or what they wish they could read to their children. They not only buy your books, they tell other people about them and urge them to buy them as well.

If you have a robust and engaged email list, every time you publish a new book, you have a ready base of fans who are eager to be part of your book’s launch into the world.

How to Get Started Building Your List

When you are just starting out, you may feel you can simply keep track of the handful of people on your list on a spreadsheet, saved in a group within your email account, or in your brain’s memory banks. (I mean, if it’s just your mom, sister, and best friend on your list, who needs a system?).

But let’s think bigger. Let’s imagine that eventually, you’ll have hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of names on your list. You’ll need a program to help you keep track.

Sign Up With an Email Service Provider

There are several options available to help you manage the emails of people on your subscriber list. These programs are referred to as email service providers, an email marketing service, or email management service.

They are all referring to the same thing: a program that helps you manage your email list. They help you collect and maintain your list, as well as send out emails to your subscribers.

You will probably be fine with a program that allows you to start collecting emails for free. As your list grows, you can always upgrade for access to more services. Or you can switch to a different provider.

This list includes providers that are known to work well for authors:

• MailerLite (free for up to 1,000 subscribers)
• MailChimp (free for up to 2,000 subscribers)
• ConvertKit (more expensive but good for larger lists)
• ActiveCampaign (also good for larger lists)
• FloDesk (newer platform that is highly recommended)

 

Create a sign-up form

Your email service provider should have templates you can use so people can sign up for your list. It doesn’t have to look like it was designed by a talented graphic artist. It does need to be clear about what it is asking.

Here’s an example of an email sign-up form:

(Look familiar?)

Place this form on your website so people can easily sign up.

But don’t just put it in the sidebar. The best way to draw people’s attention to the sign-up form (also called an opt-in, as in people are opting in to your email list) is to put it within your website content.

That means including the form within blog posts, your home page, your book page, your about page…okay, you get the idea. And in case you are worried that it will annoy visitors to your site to run into this form so much—the truth is, most of the time they won’t even notice it.

Which is precisely why you need to scatter it throughout your website.

What’s the Next Step?

Once you are ready to start building your email list, the obvious next step is figuring out what to send to them.

Regular communication is important for building your community. You have to take care of them, let them know you are thinking about them.

In the next post, we’ll explore what you can send in your emails to your list.

(Spoiler alert—it’s not a newsletter!)

The post Why Children’s Authors Need an Email List appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.

Many of them asked for my email address in exchange for something.

Some weeks, I may give my email to about half a dozen websites.

(And I wonder why my inbox is bursting at the seams?)

Several offered to send me their newsletter in exchange for my address. How many of those do you think I signed up for?

Zero.

No One Wants to Read Your Newsletter

I’m not trying to be mean here. But let’s be real: how many times do you sign up for someone’s newsletter?

This isn’t 2012, when getting someone’s newsletter still seemed like a good way to receive fun and interesting missives on a regular basis.

But now that about 3 bazillion emails are being sent every day, with about 100,000 of them going straight to your personal inbox, we are not looking for more random sources of reading material.

The most common sign up form you will likely run across on author websites is an invitation to receive the author’s newsletter.

The author promises to send out missives to subscribers. They might do so on a regular basis (weekly or monthly), somewhat regularly (“Sign up for my monthly-ish newsletter”), or sporadically (“I’ll be in touch whenever I have something to share”).

I am sorry to break it to you, but most people are not going to be interested in your newsletter.

If this vague communication is all you have to offer in exchange for your email, you are unlikely to get more than a handful of sign-ups. (The exception is if your book has been hugely popular and readers are eager to connect with you. But if that were the case, you wouldn’t be reading this post, would you?).

How to Get Subscribers to Your Email List

Provide Something of Value

Have you ever been in search of answers to a problem, or sought information about a topic, and run across a helpful post on a website? Let’s say you decide you want to grow tomatoes in your garden this year. But every time you have tried to grow tomatoes, your harvest has been decimated by pests.

So you search the internet for information on how to prevent pests from derailing your plans for homegrown tomato salad this summer.

You find lots of helpful information. One website in particular has tons of useful information about natural pest control. At the bottom of the post (or inside the post, in the sidebar, at the top of the page) is a form inviting you to receive “The Free Beginning Gardener’s Guide to Natural Pest Control.”

You have already determined the owner of the website provides rich, factual, and well-written information about gardening. You have reason to believe their guide will help you achieve your goal of pest-free tomatoes. So you fill out the form with your email address.

This gardening blogger could have just suggested you sign up for their regular newsletter. But you don’t know specifically what will be coming to your in-box. Maybe the newsletter will discuss how to grow a wildflower garden, or discourage deer from eating your plants, or how to grow an enormous watermelon and win prizes at the county fair.

But all you want are tips on keeping pests away from your tomato plants.

The more specific you can be, the more likely someone will be compelled to give you their email address. Once they are a subscriber, you can send them your emails that contain gardening tips. Some subscribers may only open a couple of emails, while others may open them all. But everyone on your list is there because you gave them something that helped them with a specific issue.

But What Value Can a Children’s Author Provide?

The biggest challenge for children’s writers is having a target audience made up of kids. You could hardly try to entice them to sign up for regular emails. Some of your audience members can’t even read!

But while kids are the readers of the books, who is buying them? Adults! This includes parents, teachers, and librarians.

Depending on the types of stories you write, you can provide value to your buying audience. If you write nonfiction, you could focus on teachers. Valuable content for teachers could include classroom activities, lesson plans, other good sources of information—all related to your book in some way.

You could target parents by appealing to the challenges parents face and how books can help. Content that is helpful to parents include suggesting books kids love. But you could make your suggestions address different topics important to parents. Some topics to consider are:

You get the idea—think about what parents would find both entertaining for this kids as well as helpful.

Some authors include items on their website that speaks directly to their young audience. They may have games, printable coloring pages, or craft activities. You could put them all on a page labeled “Just for kids” or “kids club.”

But I Don’t Have Anything to Say!

The terms “solutions” and “problems” are used pretty loosely here.

But let’s say your audience are largely parents of young children. If they have signed up to receive your emails, they are probably interested in books, right?

Think about what might they find helpful about making a trip to the bookstore. Parents visit bookstores pretty often. What problem are they hoping to solve by a visit?

Here are some ideas:

• A list of the most recent picture book releases
• How to get your child to sit still during storytime
• Lists of books in popular categories (humor, puppies, horses, fantasy)
• How to prevent your toddler from destroying books at the bookstore

Is this making sense?

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Try to give them something you would find helpful if you were them.

An email list is one of the most powerful elements of an author platform. If you want more information about how to get started with a platform, check out my overview of the topic here.

The post What to Send Your Email Subscribers appeared first on Make a Living in Kidlit.