Tips To Turn Up Book Promotions That Reach Teachers and Librarians with Alice Faye Duncan

 

Alice Faye Duncan is a National Board Educator, who writes books for young learners. Her latest titles include This Train is Bound for Glory, Coretta's Journey, Traveling Shoes, and Yellow Dog Blues--a 2022 NYT/NYPL Best Illustrated Children's Book. You can find out more info about Alice at AliceFayeDuncan.com, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Alice says that there are fewer book reviews being published these days, but she said there are other ways to introduce books to teachers and librarians.

If you want a successful kidlit creator career, it's in our best interests to find ways to connect with educators and librarians. Alice says it makes a big difference.

Just a few of Alice's suggestions:

Join state and local school library associations. Alice suggests picking three states near you or your state and two states tied to your book in some way. She suggested researching the AASL.

If you're a member, you'll have more opportunities to let other members know about your upcoming books, possibly resulting in speaker invitations. 

Join state and local literacy associations. Alice gave an example of the International Literacy Association. As a result, Alice was invited to speak and promote upcoming books.

 Join Facebook Groups where teachers, librarians, and parents amplify children's books. Post helpful resources tied to your book and include your website link in your posts. "Always do more giving than taking."

IG Live: Follow Instagram influencers who are teachers, librarians and home school leaders. After connecting with them, organize IG Live Events. "Instagrammers are always looking for great content."

Contact school districts and make them aware of school visit opportunities. Prepare a set program and have a price set.'

Don't be afraid of contacting your publisher for "marketing collateral": teacher guides, bookmarks, ARCs for book and library influencers, conference sponsorships. Your publisher may not offer, so Alice encourages us to be proactive and ask. "They might say no...but they night say YES."

"Be bold, brave, and benevolent," encourages Alice, calling these the Be-Attitudes.

Full of energy and enthusiasm, Alice shared so many fantastic examples of ways that children's book creators can connect with educators and librarians in authentic ways. Thank you, Alice!

---

If you want to view this session to hear the full content, along with the rest of the conference, register at https://www.scbwi.org/events/summer-conference-2023. Replays of the conferences will be available until September 10th, 2023.

Alice Faye Duncan - Winning Lessons from the Life of Martin Luther King Jr.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If Alice Faye Duncan is speaking or teaching anywhere, go to whatever event that is! Brilliant speaker, supersmart, energizing presence and also has the best eyeglasses. Alice shares in this breakout session the history of Dr. King's life and how his life lessons can relate to or inspire your writing life.

We'll share just a few:

Lesson #1: Take your writing orders from a higher power. It doesn't matter what you call that higher power, but ideas from that bigger better universal power are not trends, Alice learned from King that the trend is not the answer, take that higher, universal signal to guide your best ideas.

Lesson #4: Pick a winning writing team. You are a member of SCBWI, there are so many well studied, well-read members of this organization, get your critique group and community going as you find your path to publication.

Lesson #5: Use your power to help others. Alice says, "I have all this understanding [about the world of writing] now. I have it, honey, and it has been hard won."

"Take what you have been given and be a blessing to others, don't stop those donations, but give you. Give you."

We also got to meet Mildred P Waters who was in the audience! She's written more than 20 books since the sixties. Mildred had never been in a library until college, all of those new books inspired her to go into teaching, and when she began to teach in a school that was predominantly African American, the only book that had African American characters in it was Keats's SNOWY DAY. She wrote to the publisher asking for more books like that for her students to see themselves in, and the publisher told her, "Write them."

So she did.

Mildred says, "I felt like I was not a creator, the children were the creators, all I had to do was listen to them... Be still, be kind, and listen, and the muses will come to you, and then you write."

You might have heard of her Coretta Scott King Award winning Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World ? Mildred's next book comes out soon, Something Inside So Strong.

I'm guessing Alice would be okay with Mildred sharing this blog post spotlight, so here's a link to Mildred's Smithsonian interview from the Library of Congress

Author Panel - Alice Faye Duncan

Alice Faye Duncan

Alice Faye Duncan is the author of (among others) Honey Baby Sugar Child, A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks, and Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop, which was awarded a 2019 Coretta Scott King Honor Medal and voted a Best Picture Book in 2018 by Booklist, Kirkus Review, School Library Journal, and the Chicago Public Library.

Alice Faye Duncan, who won the hearts of the entire room as soon as she started speaking, is emphatically from Memphis, and grew up fully immersed in the people and places of the Civil Rights Movement. Her childhood photographer was Ernest Withers, who chronicled the era (including the last days of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), and a chance encounter with him at a funeral in 2006 planted the seed for a book about the assassination of MLK and the concurrent Memphis sanitation strike.

Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop was published in 2017 after an 11-year gestation period, and in 2019 the book received a Coretta Scott King honor medal. She believes she was destined to tell this story, because she is wholeheartedly from and of Memphis, and the people involved in the events of that time were and are her people. She urges us all to do the same for wherever we're from; she calls on us to mine the stories in our cities and our towns.

Follow Alice on Instagram, or visit her website at www.alicefayeduncan.com.