Our goal is to help millions of kids feel better about their food allergies, and hopefully help far more than that gain more compassion for their food allergy peers. To succeed, we need to make sure people know about our book, and to do that, we need your help.
Would you be a part of our launch team? Sign up here:
(this is different than our regular blog subscription on our website).
You are a great fit for our team if you:
Came to a virtual reading and already LOVE our book
Get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about all the kids you may help by sharing
Enjoy being able to share in our publishing process
Keep secrets well (since you will get insider info before the general public)
Work with children and would enjoy free presentation copies (e.g., teachers, librarians)
Love Paula and/or me and just want to help us succeed :-)
Are you curious what kind of help we may need? Here are a few examples.
We may ask you to:
Share our social media posts to your own timeline and/or related groups/pages
Provide feedback and opinions on future story and/or design decisions
Post HONEST reviews on retailer listings to help increase visibility (you can always write one and copy and paste it on different platforms as needed)
Recommend us to those who may be interested in hosting a reading (e.g., elementary school teachers and children's librarians)
Share our book with any complementary groups you may be in on social media (e.g., food allergy mom groups, elementary school book shares, etc.)
Let us know about influencers that you may know about who may be interested in helping (either our book fits their market/mission, or they have a food allergy child)
Inviting your friends who may benefit to our events
We of course will make every effort to thank you whenever and however we can (e.g., free eBook in exchange for honest reviews, cool raffles, priority consideration for private readings, etc.).
Are you wondering why your help is so important? I will share three of the top reasons that come to my mind.
Most indie children's book author royalties range from $ .33 to $3 per sale depending on format (and we still have to take out expenses before we split any profit). No one writes a children's book to get rich. As in this case, it is usually a mission-driven labor of love. As an independent author/illustrator team, we just do not have the startup budget to compete with the larger, well-established publishing companies.
We cannot afford to offer 55% discounts to brick and mortar stores AND allow returns of books that don't sell, but both are the industry standard required in order for brick and mortar stores like Barnes & Noble to carry them (though they will order any book from their online marketplace for in-store pickup). We would either have to raise our prices way above market average in order to make pennies per sale, or price our books competitively and end up paying them to buy our books. We chose to remain competitive in the marketplace and rely on online sales.
We cannot afford $10,000-$100,000 marketing budgets per month (or more), so we need to rely on social media and more cost effective advertising. Usually that would include live book readings and book launch events, but those are not an option right now due to the pandemic.
As you can see, YOU will be the most significant factor in our success. We appreciate any help you are willing to give, and will welcome you if you choose to be a member of our launch team. Let's get hoppin'!
Sorry, I couldn't resist. One of my twins would say the cheese-factor was really high on that one.
Click here to join: https://aw19e93d.aweb.page/p/ad0da265-3d5c-4e4c-83f3-7eaaa1caa340
(this is different than our regular blog subscription on my website).
