Yvette Stanton Sydney, Australia writes:
“I am the Australian publisher of a small, but growing range of embroidery books. I am about to launch two onto the U.S. market. I’d love suggestions of how make a big splash in a very niche pond.
“The market is predominantly women, many of whom love counted cross-stitch and needlepoint. Vetty Creations books take them further into embroidery, with step-by-step instructions and lots of photos and diagrams. Readers have commented that the books are so good, you never need to take classes.
“I’d love to hear suggestions from your Hounds!”
Yvette, I love artist some of my relatives were mega successful in the arts but they were also very lucky. How they got started was pure hollywood most other artist really have to work at it.
Anyway I’ll throw in my 1 cents worth to see if this helps.
I’m a guy. (Should I then clarify that I’m not into embrodiery or is further clarification needed?)
Ok, I’m a guy that doesn’t like embrodery so right off the bat the fact that you have beautiful looking embrodiery is not going to twinkle my toes but looking at your bio I bet it’s extremely well done.
Anyway what would interest me about the book?
First I noticed you went to one of my favorite places Ireland to study with Sister Teresa.
Seems to me there’s a story there.
I’d like to know why you went to study with a Nun?Who is this Nun? Does she teach everybody or were you her first student?
News wants to know.
Other points.
How did you turn embrodiery, usually a hobby, into a business? Any funny story there?
Were you at work one day dress got a hole in it stitched it up in a unique way coworkers noticed it they said do that for me and walla a business is born?
Why did you chose to research Poltavka? Were you the first?
Why does an Australian go to the Ukrane to study?
Maybe answers to those questions will be what the news wants to know.
Other ideas.
Can you use the book to say teach men how to embrodier and maintain their manhood?
Certain men may want to embrodier to give their wives
a special present the wifey wouldn’t expect.
Maybe you can use embrodiery to teach kids with attention problems how to focus on one task at a time.
Maybe there is a Ukrane population in Australia you could teach traditional Ukranian embrodiery to.
I think these things might get you and your book in the news.
I hope this helps.
I love your idea, Garth, about pitching stories about men who embroider. Back in the 70s, the media loved to report on how NFL defensive lineman Rosie Greer was an avid needlepointer.
Do a Google search for “embroidery associations” and try promoting your books to their members. They probably have a newsletter or listserv that will run your releases.
You should also offer your book to reviewers and ask them to include a review in their newsletter or blog. Start posting on blogs and in chat rooms that deal with crafts. Better yet, start your own blog and start gathering your own groupies.
“Create a viral marketing project. Offer one of your simpler projects (one chapter of your book) as a stand-alone, free product and encourage people to download it and share it. Include a link to your website and possibly a special offer for the book within it.”
Thanks Garth, Joan and Lois,
You have some great ideas for me here! I will use as many of these as I can.
With thanks for your time and for putting your mind to it for me. 🙂
Yvette
Yvette, women who buy your embroidery books probably buy other books on embroidery. So one of the best ways to reach these buyers is to head over to Amazon.com and start reviewing embroidery books written by your competitors.
Not only can you post book reviews that link back to your website, you can also post lists, articles and other things that will really position you as an embroidery expert.
Don Mitchell and Randy Gilbert explain how to do this in the CD and transcript they produced with me called “How to Turn Amazon.com into a River of Gold.”
You can learn more about it at http://tinyurl.com/vroek