When? Where? How?

[Gio Pago]

Hey everybody, as most of you may know I'm new and I'm feeling my way around here trying to find where do I fit. I'm hoping that there are a few experts here who could possibly point me in the right direction.

Question 1:

I wrote a children's mystery eBook and was just wondering: do parents actually invest in eReaders for their kids under 13?

Question 2:

Where is the best place to market a kid's eBook?

Question 3:

How should I market it; to appeal to parents or children?

Briefly:

Title:

Snoops, Clues & Boos: A Children's Mystery Tale

About: A funny mystery bed time story for children between the ages of six and twelve years of age. Join Erick and his two little pint sized super snoop cousins, Marcus and Morris the Eve of Halloween night as they search for clues to debunk or prove the rumor that new tenant Dr. Hans Craver snatches little children to steal their hands and fingers to replace his hook hand. Together as things go bump and coo-coo throughout the night, the cousins have one scare after frightening scare as they try to solve the rumored mystery of what happened to Bobby and Sam. Did Dr. Carver really steal their hands for his own evil purposes? Or can you really believe in rumors?

Links:

Promotional links removed - MODERATOR
Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Worldwalker]

Just throwing this in: is the same story going to appeal all across that age range? Children 6 years old are generally new readers, in early elementary school, and pretty much dependent on their parents for everything. By 12, they're in junior high, unlikely to be having bedtime stories read to them, and their choice in books runs more to Harry Potter or Eclipse. So my suggestion, helpful or otherwise, would be to really closely examine that age range, and books already sold for that age range, and see if you should be focusing on one part of it.

[jbcohen]

Well I have a young son, 6 or so, who I read to all of the time and I must say that at this point I have no intentions of getting him a reader as yet, he needs to develop an understanding of the desktop PC that we have at this point before I will go further with him.

The best advice that I can give is from a technological stand point:

1) make the books available to all customers in epub format and Kindle format, Kindle's cant read the same format as everyone else;

2) Try looking for a cheap way to sell the books via your own web site, I believe homestead.com will sell you that service, but at what price?

Other than that you will need to look for some way to self publish your novel via Amazon and/or Barns and Nobles.

[Gio Pago]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Just throwing this in: is the same story going to appeal all across that age range? Children 6 years old are generally new readers, in early elementary school, and pretty much dependent on their parents for everything. By 12, they're in junior high, unlikely to be having bedtime stories read to them, and their choice in books runs more to Harry Potter or Eclipse. So my suggestion, helpful or otherwise, would be to really closely examine that age range, and books already sold for that age range, and see if you should be focusing on one part of it.

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Well I have a young son, 6 or so, who I read to all of the time and I must say that at this point I have no intentions of getting him a reader as yet, he needs to develop an understanding of the desktop PC that we have at this point before I will go further with him.

The best advice that I can give is from a technological stand point:

1) make the books available to all customers in epub format and Kindle format, Kindle's cant read the same format as everyone else;

2) Try looking for a cheap way to sell the books via your own web site, I believe homestead.com will sell you that service, but at what price?

Other than that you will need to look for some way to self publish your novel via Amazon and/or Barns and Nobles.

Thanks Worldwalker & jbcohen. Your advice was extremely helpful. I figured as much that more than likely a parent wouldn't purchase a child within that age range an eReader. I do have my eBook in the formats that both of you suggested. I think my biggest obstacles I may have to overcome are how to market it and who is my target audience. Reading your advice jb, I'm thinking that parents are my target audience and those are the ones I would have to market to. Worldwalker what an interesting idea to expand my novel (longer) to appeal to an older audience. Thanks guys, you all have been most helpful.

[altworld]

Originally Posted by Gio Pago

Hey everybody, as most of you may know I'm new and I'm feeling my way around here trying to find where do I fit. I'm hoping that there are a few experts here who could possibly point me in the right direction.

Question 1:

I wrote a children's mystery eBook and was just wondering: do parents actually invest in eReaders for their kids under 13?

Yes, I wrote a short fable called The Archer, the Horse and the Princess and its doing really well on the Nook.

Question 2:

Where is the best place to market a kid's eBook?

Just put it up on as many eReader devices as you can. As for marketing I did virtually nothing for my Fable and its doing really well.

Question 3:

How should I market it; to appeal to parents or children?

Seems to be the same question as number 2.

I don't really have any suggestion on how to catch lightning in a bottle, just talk about your novel as you would a normal eBook. The rest will happen naturally.

Onwards,
Nick Davis

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Gio Pago

Question 1:

I wrote a children's mystery eBook and was just wondering: do parents actually invest in eReaders for their kids under 13?

Depends. If you're talking 11-13 y/o age range, I imagine my parents would have bought me one at that age. Any younger than that, probably not. But I read to my daughter (she's only 1 y/o) from MY ereader.

Originally Posted by Gio Pago

Question 3:

How should I market it; to appeal to parents or children?

About: A funny mystery bed time story for children between the ages of six and twelve years of age.

As Worldwalker says, 6-12 is a HUGE age range. To give you some idea of what that means, at age 6 I was reading Beverly Cleary (and generally books picked by my parents), and at 11 I started reading Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark, Brian Lumley and Michael Crichton (at my parent's discretion, but I picked the books myself).