What Works to Sell Kid Novels?

Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash

I’ve had my head buried in my dog novel revision for the last few months. But as the work draws to a close, I need to start thinking about what comes next.

Or rather, what comes after the book is acquired by a publishing company. Yes, there will be more edits and revisions, but the next steps I’m thinking about are how to get the book into readers’ hands.

I spotted this newsletter on my Facebook feed recently and decided to subscribe, Publishing Confidential by Kathleen Schmidt. She has more than 20 years of experience in publicity and marketing in the book publishing industry including starting her own PR firm.

Schmidt recently posted a two-part (so far?) series called “Book Publicity: What Works and What Doesn’t.”

I found it fascinating reading. For one thing, she’s careful to explain the value of publicity as it relates to selling books.

She also goes through a boatload of promotional channels and gives her thoughts about them. For example, about reviews she writes, “I’d love to write that reviews sell books, but I’d be lying.”

She has a separate paragraph about trade reviews, writing, “They don’t sell books but help inform agents, salespeople, and buyers about specific titles.”

Schmidt doesn’t state this anywhere in her two-part series, but I suspect her experience and opinions are based primarily, if not all, on marketing books for adults.

I wanted to point that out because, while I found her views really helpful, selling middle grade and YA novels isn’t quite the same.

One big difference is that the kids’ market has adult gatekeepers—librarians, teachers, parents, grandparents, booksellers. Marketing directly to our target readers is different.

So I suspect that trade reviews in publications like School Library Journal and The Horn Book Magazine have more impact on sales to schools, libraries, and bookstores in the kid lit field.

I’m a regular subscriber to Horn Book and use its reviews to help me decide what to read. I probably rely more on word-of-mouth recommendations, however.

That’s kind of what the reviews seem like in specialized publications—word-of-mouth from people with similar interests.

For example, my husband is a member of a retired intelligence officers association (a club for retired spies). It sends a print journal, quarterly I think, and in the back it includes reviews of books related to espionage, both fiction and non-fiction. My husband has bought several new books as a result of those reviews.

I plan to research organizations that align with my dog novel and see if they’d be a good fit for marketing my book when the time comes.

Meanwhile, back to my revision.

How’s your work coming? Need any help? If so, set up a free Zoom call with me.