Children's Book Marketing Made Easy

Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Children’s Books (START HERE)
===

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Children's Book, marketing Made Easy podcast. I'm your host, Harley Mansky. After publishing my first three children's books on Amazon, KDPI have turned this into my full-time job. So yes, I'm a full-time self-published children's book, author, illustrator, author, coach, and creative entrepreneur.

If that sounds like something you wanna do too, then this. Podcast is the right podcast for you. 'cause in this podcast I take my original YouTube videos and I've turned this into a podcast form so you can take it with you on the go in your daily life, so that way you don't have to sacrifice your time or your energy, but you're still learning.

If you wanna watch the original YouTube video, that's gonna be linked in the show notes down below, as well as a bunch of other free author resources. Free marketing guide, Instagram content planner and book launch team checklist with email templates. But without further ado, let's get right into the podcast episode.

If you're watching this video, that means that you've probably written, [00:01:00] illustrated and or published your children's book, and now you're thinking, how do I actually sell this thing? Like how do I actually sell it? Well, in this video, I'm gonna tell you exactly how to do it. This is the Complete Beginner's Guide to Marketing your children's book.

It's gonna be simple, actionable, and sustainable. By the way, this strategy does not include the use of ads, which is why I recommend that you start here. Don't try to dabble into ads until you're absolutely certain that your book can sell even without ads. So. In today's video, I'm gonna go through step-by-step how we're gonna lay the foundation for your children's book marketing, and if we haven't met before.

Hi, my name is Harley and I'm an award-winning, self-published children's book author and illustrator. I've been in the publishing world now for about three years, and from those three years of publishing, I have branched off of my children's books into becoming a full-time social media manager. Virtual assistant as well as a children's book marketing coach.

So [00:02:00] the first step in making sure your marketing foundation is. Solid is making sure that your book and everything is solid everywhere else.

So what I mean is like your book's title is optimized. You have figured out the categories that your book needs to be in on Amazon, KDP. I am not gonna dive into that today because that is a whole other beast to talk about,

then making sure that your book story is marketable and your cover looks good, like making sure all those little features work. And then we go into step number two. I say your book is marketable. It means like is there a story that relates to a topic that you can talk about? So for example, one of my most marketable books is.be Safe, the Bees.

And this is a fun rhyming picture book about bee conservation for kids. And in my marketing I can say like, are you a mom of a three to 5-year-old and you're looking to teach your kids about bee conservation? Check [00:03:00] out my book. That is what I mean by marketable. So if you've already written and illustrated and published a book that might not be as marketable.

That's fine. You can always start from here and then pivot and create a more marketable book and story in the future. So after we've nailed our Books Foundation, we're gonna move on to step two, and that is we're gonna spread the word about your book. So this one might be the most daunting to do. I know in the beginning it was so daunting for me.

But I'm gonna lay it out nice and simple here for you. So the two things that I want you to set up is one social media platform. I only want you to pick one because I know that if you start with three accounts and you don't even post on one account consistently, you are not. Going to be consistent on any of 'em.

So you're just gonna burn out and then you're just not gonna market your book at all. So you're gonna start with one platform. I honestly, I could be biased, but I recommend Instagram because it is more [00:04:00] beginner friendly. And on Instagram there is like the best children's book author community on there.

Like they're all very supportive. We act as a team., It is like so cool and it is honestly the best community in the world. So open up an Instagram profile specifically for your books. I don't recommend using your personal Instagram for it. , You can keep your personal Instagram personal, and then you can like sprinkle things in about your book.

But create a separate Instagram account for your author profile. And the second thing that I want you to open up and start is an email list. Now, do not click away from the video. I promise you an email list is so important for us Children's book authors, and I have a bunch of different videos where I talk about email list building and I will link one right here for you.

But keep watching this video because this is gonna lay the foundation that's gonna lay the groundwork, but go to the other video in the description below. I'll have it there for you as well. So after you open up your email list platform, you're going to [00:05:00] create a lead magnet. So a lead magnet is something of value that you can give away for free.

So for example, I use coloring pages, busy book pages, activities. All that as a lead magnet, and I set that up with my email list, and you don't need to do the email list step right away. I honestly would start with step one, picking one platform and then doing step two and doing an email list. But I think like if you're really, really, really driven about this and you want to make sure you have all of your systems put together right away, you have your one platform and you have your email list, and then you can have links to your lead magnet.

On your social media platform, but I'm not gonna get too ahead of myself here. I know that coming up with content can be like a really scary and daunting thing and sounds really challenging, but once you start posting all the time, you kind of realize like, oh, I can use that as content. I can use that as content.

Like it becomes so easy to post. So just start with posting three times a week. Move [00:06:00] it up to four times a week, then go to five times a week. And some examples of posts that you can create to talk about your book if it isn't launched, is you can share the cover of your book. You can share inside illustrations of your book.

You can share quotes from your book. I highly recommend you dabble into reels, especially if you're gonna go the Instagram route, post some reels, like where you do a talking head video, talking about your book and why you wrote the book. You can take a picture of you donating your book in a little free library in your community.

You can take a picture like that. You can take pictures of your book, like outside. You can talk about your main character and like why your main character has its name. Why your main character is the animal that it is, or what's the backstory to your main character? And also like talk about you. I really think on any social media platform you should talk about you as well as your book because social media people, we wanna [00:07:00] connect with people.

that's why videos do so well, because when you hear someone speak and you listen to their story, you just automatically feel more connected to them. So highly recommend that you start doing a little bit of that, but if you're not comfortable with that yet, that's fine. Just take baby steps and just start posting pictures of your book.

And I actually have a free Instagram content planner in the description for you. It will help you come up with like 30 days of content. And you'll come up with a posting schedule that you can stick to. And going back to the children's book author community on Instagram, if you are wanting to post on Instagram and you wanna start on Instagram, you can follow me on Instagram and then DM me that you found this video off of YouTube and you wanna get connected with other children's book author.

I can help you do that. So go ahead, follow me. Let's get connected. Let's get you into this community because it genuinely is the best, most supportive community. But the whole point of that community [00:08:00] is to give more than you receive. So if you are just like constantly talking about your own book all the time and you're not helping other authors out, it's not gonna be great.

if you genuinely wanna make. Friends, reach out to me, follow me, DM me. I'll get you connected. So this next thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna tap into your personal network. So that means you're going to tell your friends, family, and coworkers about your children's book when it's published, or if it's even being in the process of being illustrated.

Talk to your friends and family and coworkers. Talk to your personal network about your book because they wanna support you. And plus. If you're trying to just delve into the online community and you just wanna get online sales as quick as possible and you're too shy, or you have imposter syndrome over, like you being a children's book author, I know for the longest time, when I published my first books, I didn't tell like anybody.

I was so embarrassed to tell people that I was a children's book author, but since I [00:09:00] ripped the bandaid off and I'm like, you know what? I'm doing something that a lot of people wouldn't actually do. I'm following through. I am following my dreams and I'm doing it, and I'm putting myself out there.

And I know a lot of people can't do that. So I say it loud, I say it proud. So you should do that too. Say it loud, say it proud. Your network wants to support you. Plus it will be way easier to get sales and reviews. From your personal network, then it will be online. Because anybody online that hasn't connected with you, like they barely even know about you, they barely know about your book, they're not gonna do anything to support you.

I hate to break it to you, but that is something you have to foster over time. It will come, but you just have to foster it overtime. So start with your personal network. Let's say you start posting on Instagram. You can tell your friends and family and coworkers about your Instagram and they can go follow you on Instagram and they can share your posts from Instagram, just make your network work for you.

Alright? And the final [00:10:00] step for your beginner's Guide to marketing your children's book is to continue marketing. You have to keep going. You have to keep building. And I know in the beginning it is going to seem so slow rolling. Like it is going to be a climb. But I promise you, once you get up that hill, it will be so much easier to market your future books and it will become like a part of your daily life marketing your books.

I know that after I put in the systems for me to post three to five times a week, now I'm posting about six to seven times a week or more just because I post on so many platforms. But it becomes normal once you start having these relationships online and you know you're nurturing your community. You want to connect with people so it becomes almost effortless.

Something really cool that you can do with publishing your children's book on Amazon KDP is you can offer your children's book as a free ebook if you sign up to be on Amazon, KDP Select. That's [00:11:00] the program where you can run free ebook promotions. You can set your free ebook of your children's book free.

For, what is it? Five days for every 90 days then when you have these free ebook, mini launches, you can tell your friends, family, coworkers, that you have a free ebook. You can post it on your Instagram or whatever platform you're posting on. You can send that over to your email list subscribers.

So then when people go to your Amazon link and they download the free ebook, they can review your book and your Amazon algorithm like listing will bump up in the algorithm because people are clicking on your book and reading your book. I know that was a lot of information, but if you feel really overwhelmed and you want some more like printable resources that you can have in your hands that will help you with your marketing journey.

I've got a bunch of free resources in the description. I've got a free marketing guide. I've got the Instagram content planner guide, and I have a book launch team guide in the description down below. So go [00:12:00] ahead and download those.

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast episode. I hope you found it helpful and you learn something new. And if you did find it help. Well make sure to subscribe or follow wherever you listen to your podcast so that way you don't miss a new episode. And if you want more personalized one-on-one support to help publish, launch, or grow your children's book marketing business, you can always book a one-on-one coaching call with me.

I take these calls all the time, and it's a great way for me to really see what you're working with and how I can help you grow your social media platforms, grow your book sales, do. Anything involved with Children's Book marketing or publishing, the link to book a call is gonna be in the show notes down below.

I offer many sessions as well as full sessions to be as accessible to you as possible. And if you're looking for a more step-by-step DIY approach, you can join my signature membership program, author Growth Roadmap in Author Growth Roadmap. I give you. Step-by-step curriculum on how you can publish Launch Market and Scale your [00:13:00] children's book publishing business to help you turn this into a long-term sustainable business.

That will also be linked the show notes down below for you. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.