How does an author establish a unique niche when marketing a children's book?

The pages that illustrate this article are taken directly from the Crystal Kingdom Series and are under consideration for a 'soon to be happening' mural. To set the scene for this marketing strategy, let's talk about the book.

Jane Prior’s Crystal Kingdom series is a set of three books to share with young children.

They offer

• adventurous story lines to stimulate imagination
• sumptuous visuals to savour
• life-like problems to solve
• ethical choices to consider
• and real life issues to investigate

Jane highlights the value of pausing busy lives to explore nature and mindfulness, and invites readers and young listeners to set forth on their own adventures using two of early childhood’s natural learning modalities: imagination and play.

Faye Sinclair, an Early Childhood Teacher, says that the author empowers young children to think, explore, experience, cooperate and learn, while offering suggestions on how to get started with play; 

Following Paul's lead, I expect the synergy created by the River Lights Festival and the opening of the Cunnamulla Hot Springs to create a tourist boom in the area. Creativity is expected to 'catch fire' and empower locals as they soar like birds caught in an updraft. See Synergy of the Cunnamulla Hot Springs and the River Lights Festival

It seemed obvious then that I try out some marketing ideas. Promoting these worthwhile books seemed like the perfect promotional product. Not wanting to wait until I found the willing library, the bustling cafe or the book shop that would obviously take care of sales and promotion for me. I ventured on alone.

I decided to set up a mural at the local Cunnamulla Christmas Party just to see what would happen.

To the left, you can see a clipped shot from Book 2 and the negotiations with the author taking place. Because it  was a Christmas Party and because it was at night, I wanted to change the colours to a more Christmassy feel  and to set up lights all around the mural.

We did suffer some set backs, however, this was a learning curve and so I know how to go about the whole process much more easily next year.

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The general idea was a good one, and the children were engaged. We will keep this small mural and re-stage the idea next year. Setting up markets is very time consuming, and we are looking for something more permanent.

For this idea to work in a cafe or bookshop, we decided it would need to be interactive

Painting a mural in a play area of a cafe seems like a more productive idea.

The books can be in a permanent display, and parts of the mural can be painted with chalk paint so that the kids can draw into the image. 

If you would like to buy the Crystal Kingdom set of books click here, and if you would like to know more about the philosophy behind Jane's books scroll to the bottom of What is the Point of an Artist Painting a Selfie You will see that Jane puts a lot of herself into the words she writes.