These are only a few of the tips that Paul Collins of Ford Street Publishing gave at the CYA Conference on 4 Jul 2015:

Some advice for presenting at libraries and schools: Get yourself one of those tall portable banners for your latest book. They are economical at around $165 each, all you have to do is prepare the artwork in PDF format and take it to a printer. Set them up where ever you are giving a talk or launch and make sure that when photographs get taken that you are standing near the banner. Then each time that photo gets shared, you have an in-built free plug for your book.

Also take some merchandise with you. Print some bookmarks, but only print on one side. That is so you can write on the other side. Children like to get your autograph, and should they present you with a scrap piece of paper, you can whip out a bookmark instead and sign that. It will be more durable, and more likely to be kept and treasured that way. Make friends with your local printer. It is possible to get bookmarks printed on paper wastage from big print jobs, thus reducing your costs.

Fridge magnets can be produced cheaply and provide good publicity. It is better to have your book cover on the fridge magnet than a character or scene from your story. Make sure the magnet has your website URL on it.

Having a website is essential. But you must keep it up to date. Don't give someone else complete control of your website. Having the capacity to make Do It Yourself changes to your website is good.



If you would like a copy of the more detailed Conference Notes that are being sent out to CBHunCC members via email, send through your name and email address through the Contact page.

Since I didn't know prior to the CYA Conference, maybe you don't either, but it was one of the things Paul Collins mentioned in his excellent session entitled 'Marketing Your Book'.

Unless you are on the A-list with your publisher, preparing an Advance Information Sheet is something you should do yourself and then send to bookshops and potential reviewers. Whether you are an author or illustrator, you should put one of these AI's together and distribute them. (Sometimes they get referred to as an AIS.)

So what is it? It is a single A4 page document that contains comprehensive information about your book. Nitty gritty stuff about page length, height and width, ISBN, recommended retail price, publisher as well as an image of the book cover, an outline of the storyline, something about the author, something about any planned media coverage, something about the target audience, and information on how to order the book.

You can read here how Joanne Phillips prepared her own AI for a self-published book, and see an image of it too. https://joannegphillips.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/getting-into-bookshops-advance-information-sheets/

This next link looks a bit dry, but it contains some need-to-know basics as well as a download link to a sample AI template. http://www.centralbooks.com/publisher/books/home_ai.html

And this link contains an excellent checklist to make sure you haven't forgotten anything, as well as some reasons why it needs to be included, for example if you send it as a Word document that will make it easier for a bookseller to add their own notations or cut and paste relevant information into their sales catalogue. http://www.globalbookmarketing.co.uk/default.php?p=advance-information-sheets

The earlier you are able to send your Advance Information Sheet to booksellers and reviewers prior to publication date the better.

Welcome to our inaugural Free Plug Friday, an opportunity for children's book writers and illustrators to plug your book, blog, website or online portfolio in 200 words or less.

Why? Because we all need practice in pitching our work to others and thinking seriously about what our unique selling points really are in the world of children's books.

Why 200 words? Because most book blurbs need to be that length or less to be successful, and if you haven't caught the interest of your reader by then it isn't going to happen.

You might find this link about writing an effective book description helpful in preparing your free plug https://www.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1462

Here's the rules:

• You can only plug your own work.

• You can plug more than one of your works, as long as they relate to children's books and squeak within the 200 word limit.

• Children's books include anything from Picture Books up to Young Adult (but not New Adult), and can take any 'for sale' format (traditional print, e-book, print-on-demand, book app). You are welcome to plug traditionally published work as well as self-published work.

• If you don't have any work published in book format yet, promote your website, your blog, or any online illustration portfolios you have.

• Write (or paste) your free plug in the comment section below.

• Each person only gets one comment section to plug with.

• A home page URL will be counted as one word and any other URLs will be counted as two words. However you cannot include more than 4 URLs in your plug.

• Make sure that any URL you provide is available to anyone on the internet and doesn't require registrations and passwords to view.

• The comment section will be open from around midnight 9 April to midnight 10 April Australian Eastern Standard Time, comment moderation will be on, and every few hours comments will be checked that they comply with the rules before being published.

• CBHunCC members get a bonus and have 300 words to plug with, and are the only ones allowed to plug exhibitions, book launches and local community events.

• The best plug as judged by the CBHunCC moderator will have their work promoted by 3 tweets from @CBHunCC, one on 11 Apr, one on 12 Apr and one on 13 Apr.

The plan is to run a Free Plug Friday every two months, so please tune in for the next one in early June 2015.

If you have ever wondered how other people run online promotions for their books? 
The following blog-post from Darcy Pattison may answer your questions:
http://www.darcypattison.com/pr-notes/online-contest/
In it she interviews 3 authors who have blogs, at least 2 of whom write for children, about their experiences with running online book promotions. The main tips are: keep it simple to enter, put 'Contest' in the title of the blog-posts that talk about the online competition, and keep the length of the competition short.