Hello, creative friends!

Author / Illustrator Life

Are you in a season of wintering?

I (Melissa) had coffee with a group of SCBWI writers and illustrators last week, and they talked about how it’s hard to be creative during heavy times. It’s true. We have to have grace with ourselves in these seasons.

In the book Wintering by Katherine May, she writes, “We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”

We hope this quote encourages you to be wherever you are, wintering or in a creative flow. Like life, creativity can ebb and flow in a seasonal way. And that’s okay.

Marketing & PR

We’ve seen that one of the best ways to market yourself and your books is by doing school visits. In fact, you can get important preorders around your launch time that can highly impact your book sales…and your next advance.

So, instead of asking all your friends to buy your book, consider booking 20 school visits that require 20-25 book purchases per visit. That’s 400+ books! This affects 1) your sales and 2) your next advance. Plus, school visits change students' lives!

How can we help?

We help our coaching clients make school visits more interactive and dynamic. And we help facilitate those important book orders. We connect clients with a trustworthy independent bookstore that will drop ship the books to the schools.

Want to know more about becoming a client? Hit reply and let us know.

School Visit Tip

Good presenters hook students right away.

But how?

Ask a question to engage students' attention and build immediate rapport.

Rapport means they’re starting to like you because they know something about you.

You might ask the students: “Who else LOVES… Marvel, ugly dogs, Weird Al, cats, the not color black, monsters, __ {insert whatever is true and also kid friendly}?”

Kids raise their hands.

Then say, “Wow, we already have so much in common!”

You are getting to know them. They are getting to know you. That’s the idea!

Do you already have a good hook that grabs attention and builds rapport?

Hit reply and let us know!

This is just one of hundreds of ideas we have to help you improve your school visits.

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Warm wishes,

Melissa & Ellen
contact@imaginariumauthorsolutions.com
​Imaginarium Author Solutions​
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