Children's Book Marketing for Online Kids
Using Online Promotion and Multimedia Presentations to Market Books
Apr 30, 2009
Having spent years as a commercial producer and designer of in-store multimedia displays for clients including Sony, AT&T, and Hewlett Packard, PJ Haarsma knows how to promote products to tech savvy audiences. Today, as the author of the young adult science fiction book series The Softwire, he has turned this knowledge toward creating interactive multimedia presentations and online promotion for book marketing.
Suite 101 learned about Haarsma’s take on book promotion during an April 16, 2009 phone interview. The following is an edited version of the interview.
Children’s Book Marketing
S101: What are your thoughts on children’s book marketing?
Haarsma: I’m a strong believer in that books are not marketed properly to kids. Kids, because of marketing, know every movie, TV show, and video game they want before they come out- but when it comes to books, kids are expected to walk into a bookstore with a hundred thousand titles and choose one that’s right for them.
So when I set out to market The Softwire, I put a lot of effort into two aspects of book marketing- having a large presence online and school visits. And both have proven extremely successful.
Book Marketing Through Online Promotion and Video Game Design
S101: You taught yourself video game design and created a free online game based on your books – The Rings of Orbis. Why did you do this?
Haarsma: I knew my audience was online, so I went looking for them and found them on sites like Neopets, Disney Club Penguin, Gaia Online- the online communities where kids were playing. So what I set out to do with The Rings of Orbis was create an online community where fans could hang out and play games with other fans while they’re waiting for the books. I want to expand that by adding storylines I couldn’t have in the books- maybe as e-books, comic strips, or flash movies- and keep expanding my universe online.
S101: Do people who play Rings of Orbis read the books?
Haarsma: Oh yeah. Seventy-eight percent who play the game read the books.
Using an Interactive Multimedia Presentation in Author Visits
S101: What are your author visits like?
Haarsma: My school visits are fifty minute multimedia presentations. I start by explaining the universe and our position in it. I bring kids up and we act out how far apart everything is- there’s lots of humor involved. Then I tell them a campfire-type story about The Softwire and bring out these giant banners of aliens- but I don’t tell them the end of the story.
From there I go into the concept art for The Softwire movie we’re working on and a DVD clip of the animated art. I tell them how I created an online game for the Softwire and show them a clip of the video game. And I end with a fifteen-minute alien ghost story of how I came up the idea of The Softwire- complete with an alien artifact in a locked metal case and a body guard.
The Future of Children’s Book Marketing
S101: What ideas do you have for the future of children’s book marketing?
Haarsma: We’re looking at new technology that handshakes with Bluetooth items so when people walk by our booth at science fiction conventions we can push out a message about a book or game. We’re trying to combine gaming and literature more. We’re also getting involved with other book sites- Teens Read Too, Pink Ray Gun, Good Reads, and Shelfari- so we have another portal for people to get to us.
Expanding the brand in a vertical format is also important so kids can come into the stories from other avenues- graphic novels, collectable cards, Web shows, television, or movies. It’s really about controlling the intellectual property and giving it as much reach as possible so you can bring kids into the story from many different aspects.
Learn more about PJ Haarsma’s Softwire series at Young Adult Writer Excites Readers About Sci Fi and this review of The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2.
Discover more about The Rings of Orbis computer game at Sci Fi Author Creates New Kids Computer Games.
And learn about PJ Haarsma’s author visits and the Rings of Orbis online game by visiting his websites.
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