Can you repurpose your children´s eBook content? Let´s say that you have created a lovely story for children and that you have spent endless nights writing and/or drawing your eBook. Your creation is now in Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads and a couple of other places and you are spending a lot of time marketing your work.
Is that all that you can do?
I think that at some point you can recycle your content: the characters, the situations and in general, the ideas you have created.
Let´s try to come up with some examples:
- Comics.- Depending on your character, of course, you could create a comic book or some comic strips featuring your creations. Lincoln Peirce, author of “Big Nate” is a master doing this: he moves Nate effortlessly between daily comic strips and books, always creating new and awkward situations for the poor kid.
- Apps.- You can create an interactive app to run on a smart phone, based in your eBook. Deborah Eve Alastra has done this with her latest book, “Señor Tortuga, the Color Mixer.” You will be able to buy both a physical book and an interactive app.
- Audio books.- You can have the same story as an audio book and you can have it reviewed by Susan Keefe at her new Audiobook Monthly Magazine.
- Physical books.- Although it is more expensive, you could also have your eBook become a paper book that your little readers will love to hold in their hands.
- Post cards, buttons and all sort of crazy little things.- Your fans may want a poster of your characters, or a button, a pen, a postcard or any other little cute thing to take to school. A good example of this practice is Tania Camacho and her creation “Jours de Papier.” She creates and publishes a free comic strip in the Internet, but sells all kinds of mementos about her funny characters, who happen to be her and her boyfriend Esteban. She also sells physical books that collect her Internet comic strip. (By the way, “Jours de Papier” is not for children. It is a very funny strip about a young couple living together.)
- T-shirts, caps, cups, jackets.- Stephanie Lisa Tara has had a great success with her book “I´ll follow the moon.” She has also been very successful at selling different types of merchandise related to her eBooks and characters.
- From blog to eBook; from eBook to blog.- Kay Iscah is an example of an author who can go from blog to eBook. She keeps a blog where she has published some of her stories as weekly installments, and later on, she publishes them as eBooks. In the process, she creates a nice following base that will be willing to go for the eBook. Bette Stevens is another wonderful example: she has created a book about Monarch butterflies, but also keeps a very successful blog where she tells us about these lovely creatures and where we can download great related stuff, such as free posters!
- New markets; new languages.- Sorry, this just had to be here. To me, one basic principle of content marketing is to try to recycle your content with a slightly different market. If your book has been successful with English speaking kids, why aren´t you looking into the Spanish speaking children? Spanish is just one example, but you could try any language: Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, you name it. It is just another segment to repurpose your content.
These are just some examples. Have you done any of these or something different? What is your experience? Is it worth it? Let us all know what you think about this!
My mission is to help English writing authors reach the Latino Market by translating their eBooks to Spanish. Contact me at http://www.publicatuebook.ca or at joe@publicatuebook.ca
