Thursday, June 12, 2008

Class of 2K8 at NJSCBWI

The Class of 2K8 panel at NJSCBWI:
Daphne Grab, Nina Nelson, Marissa Doyle, & Nancy Viau

Members from the Class presented an afternoon workshop on guerrilla marketing called 28 Great Marketing Ideas from the Class of 2k8. Nina Nelson, Marissa Doyle, Daphne Grab, and Nancy Viau spoke about marketing their debut novels, individually and as part of a group, to a packed room full of energetic attendees.

They began with the basics—have a signature line for every email that includes your information, create a professional-looking website that reflects not only your book, but you as an author. People nodded and smiled, and scribbled notes in the spaces left on the handout. Press kits were discussed, along with publisher/author communication, tie-ins to national organizations, and what can be done to create consistent buzz. People scribbled harder!
Nancy, Daphne, And Marissa

Half way through the presentation, Nina, Marissa, Daphne, and Nancy addressed the nitty-gritty of marketing and had a little show-and-tell of popular swag like posters, tote bags, pins, candy, and bookmarks. Library visits, school workshops, signings, movie trailers, and blogging were discussed as ways to spread the word about books. A topic that got a lot of interest was that of social networking, and numerous attendees had questions about the usefulness and safety of promotion through MySpace, Facebook, JacketFlap, etc.


Daphne, Nina,Marissa, and Nancy


The panel was a hit! Questions kept coming long after everyone filtered out into the hallway.

Check the Class website for more 2k8 presentations coming to local, regional, and national conferences this year.

Stay tuned: more pics from the NJSCBWI conference coming tomorrow!

1 comment:

Ayesha Khan said...

Thank you for telling us about the conference, Nancy. I really appreciate it. You're scaring me, though, because I haven't got a clue about what a signature is! Time to find out!

I just signed up with MySpace, but since I haven't officially published, don't I look pushy, advertising myself?

Your book looks like a lot of fun. My daughter and I will have to buy it!