Auction #24: School & Library Planning & Publicity Package from Kate Messner

Welcome to KidLit Cares, an online talent auction to benefit the Red Cross relief effort to help communities recover from Superstorm Sandy. Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to the Red Cross disaster relief fund. You can read more about KidLit Cares here. Now, on to the auction!

This School/Library Planning & Publicity Package is perfect for the debut author/illustrator or for anyone who creates books and would like to see more of those books in schools and libraries.

Kate Messner (that’s me)  is the author of twenty current and forthcoming books for young readers as well as a former National Board Certified English Language Arts teacher. I spoke at the 2012 TED Conference, give frequent presentations at state & national education, library, and writing conferences; and visit hundreds of schools and libraries each year, either in person or via Skype, to talk with kids about books and writing.  Connecting teachers & kids with book is my passion, and I’ll work with the winning bidder of this package to create a school & library outreach plan for your picture book, MG novel, YA novel, or nonfiction title of your choice.  Here’s how it will work:

You’ll send me an ARC or finished copy of the book you want to focus on. You’ll also answer a survey I’ve designed to help me learn how your book and your personal talents might fit school & library needs.  Then, I will:

• Read your book and design a study and discussion guide for classes & book clubs. It will be modeled after the ones I create for my own books. Here’s an example – the discussion & resource guide I created for Eye of the Storm. I’ll send it to you as a Word document, and you’ll be able to share it on your website, with your publisher, and wherever else you’d like.
  
• Write you a letter that includes the following:
• An overview of how I think your book can meet the needs of schools, libraries, & book clubs.
• A paragraph about how your book can be used to help teachers meet the new Common Core State Standards. This will be written in a way that you can copy and paste it onto your website or other promotional materials.
• Suggested ideas for in-person school visits
• Suggested ideas for Skype visits
• Suggestions for how your publisher’s school & library marketing person might pitch you to appear on panels at conferences like NCTE, ALA, and IRA.  This will be written in a way that you can copy & paste into an email to your school & library conference person.
• Other suggestions that might help your book reach more schools/libraries. This may include resources to share on Pinterest, people to follow on Twitter, etc. We’ll talk.
• Write a post about your book on my blog, featuring the title and talking about how I see it fitting into school, library, and book club plans.
• Share that blog post with my 8000+ Twitter followers & Facebook friends, many of whom are teachers and librarians.
• Have a 30-minute phone call with you, during which we can talk about any and all of the above items and you can ask whatever other questions you’d like about how best to connect your book with schools, libraries, and book clubs.

Please note: This is a lot of stuff, requiring a lot of thought, so it won’t be done overnight. You can plan on receiving your discussion guide & letter about four months after you’ve sent your book & completed your survey.

Opening Bid: $30

Auction Ends: Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 10pm EST. (Any bids submitted in comments after that time will be void.)

A note about last-minute bidding: If you are used to computerized Ebay auctions that end at an exact, given second, please know that the KidLit Cares auctions don’t work quite that way. Each auction ends when I post the “Auction closed” comment. I do that when my computer turns to 10pm, but because I have multiple auctions to close at that time (also because I am human) it will not be a totally exact thing.  (I have been working for years to try and clone myself, but to no avail, and I am particularly bummed about that at the moment. Those cloned Kates would have been great at closing auctions all at once.) At any rate, the winning bid is the high bid before the Auction Closed comment, even if the time on your computer reads slightly after 10:00. Thanks for understanding!

If you’d like to bid on this auction, check the current high bid and place a higher bid by leaving your name and bid amount in the comments, along with some way to contact you (email, FB or Twitter…I’m not fussy.) Winners will be notified when the auction ends and should be prepared to make an online donation to the Red Cross Disaster Relief fund in the amount of the high bid at that time.  After you’ve made your donation, you’ll forward your receipt to me, and I’ll put you in touch with the person who donated the service you won so that the two of you can work out the details about how and when.   All services will be provided at the convenience of both the person making the donation and the auction winner, but this should happen within three months of the auction’s end unless something else is agreed upon by both parties.

Good luck and thanks for your help!