Oh, What Big Eyes You Have (make reading fun)

Big Eyes Mouth

GET KIDS TO READ

As you can see, my daughter had some fun with a magnifying glass and a camera.

Which gave me an idea…

Wouldn’t this be a cool, interactive way to involve kids in stories.

Obviously, this story would be about Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf.

Use the magnifying glass to make Big Eyes, a Big Mouth, and Big Ears.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get more kids to enjoy reading.

More than that, this is a marketing opportunity for children’s authors.

I don’t mean Little Red Riding Hood. I mean the idea of making the storytelling fun and interactive. Not necessarily with a magnifying glass.

Surely, you can think of some other prop relevant for your story.

When you interact with kids in person, that fun moment that you create may help to get the kids—or more importantly, their parents—interested in your brand of authorship.

Online, your cool idea for making storytelling may help your marketing. You can post cool pics (with permission, of course) showing your idea. You can market the idea of helping to make reading fun, while indirectly benefiting your book and your brand as author. Or you might create a viral Facebook post or YouTube video.

Or just mentioning the prop and its use for your story might prove to be a valuable merchandising tip.

It’s all about inspiring more kids to enjoy reading. But if you’re a children’s author and can benefit from helping to achieve this, there is a possible bonus in there.

Write happy, be happy. 🙂

Chris McMullen

Copyright © 2015

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

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  • Volume 2 on marketability and marketing
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Dos and Don’ts on Writing a Book Blurb

Great tips for such an important part of your book’s merchandising.

Nicholas C. Rossis

From the blog of Nicholas C. Rossis, author of science fiction, the Pearseus epic fantasy series and children's books Image: Rightreading.com

The inspiration for this post came from a little gem I found on the Passive Guy’s Newsletter (if you aren’t already a subscriber, what are you waiting for? It’s free!). After some heavy editing, it ended up as this post.

The original post came from the Self Publishing Review, if you wish to see it in its entirety.

Writing a Book Blurb

By far, the weakest part of many self-published books is the synopsis. Writing a decent blurb is an art form totally separate from writing a book.

Authors, myself included, often feel this is their least favorite part of the process. It can make you feel icky writing superlatives about your own book. At the same time, too many superlatives can literally be icky (“A work of genius” comes to mind). A good blurb needs to strike a balance between being informative, but not too informative, salesy, but not…

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