Saturday, May 2, 2015

Finding the Audience for a New Book

I've just begun the Udemy Course for Freelancers taught by author and entrepreneur Seth Godin. Subscribing to his blog, I've found that at least a quarter of his daily posts are so useful, challenging or thought-provoking that I wanted to share them and/or save them for further reflection. 

In his course, a series of 87 short videos with writing exercises, Godin guides students through a process designed "to create a non-generic, unique and remarkable individual who has the leverage and the freedom to make a ruckus." There's also a comment board where students can post their responses and engage in discussion. 

I decided to take the course to focus on the project of finding the audience for my forthcoming title, I'm New Here, a concept picture book about three immigrant children, coming out in August from Charlesbridge.

The first part of the course, "Why Freelance?," includes a series of questions which Godin encourages respondents to answer publicly, in blogs or on Facebook. Here goes...

Who Are You?
1. What do you want to do?
Big picture: To create appealing, engaging children's books that touch people of all ages, connecting them to each other across race, culture and other differences, and to bring these books to a wide audience. 
Current project: To find the audience for this book: To get a copy of I'm New Here into every public school in the U.S.

2. Who do you want to change, and how do you want to change them? 
To increase awareness of and empathy for the challenges of being a new arrival among the teachers and classmates of refugee and immigrant children, and to inspire them with ways to support new students through the adjustment process.

3 comments:

Agyw said...

Love this and as I've been "drilling down" into "marketing much of this I've come to. Please let me know about how you like this course and if you find it worth it. I've shared this post and some of my thoughts on my personal FB wall. Hope you are well! <3 Agy

Anne Sibley O'Brien said...

Thanks so much, Agy. I've only started the course, but I've been so struck with Godin's outlook, the way he emphasizes value and cuts through so much of the muck and junk to what really matters, so I trust that this material will be substantive and insightful as well.

If you've got posts about your learnings re. marketing, please share links. I'm interested in heat you've discovered, as I'm sure others would be.

Annie

Anne Sibley O'Brien said...

That's "what" you've discovered...

And I'm not on FB. Any other place I can access your observations?