![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/31398179_10214009172121075_3627787531505893376_o-1.jpg\")
The hilarious Sarah Dillard on the left, yours truly on the right, and adorable mice all around.<\/p><\/div> Vermont’s baseball team mascot, Lake Monster Champ, is also a fan of Sarah’s.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Book lovers are everywhere\u2014and sometimes we need to go out and find them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“You should be going to every Girl Scout Jamboree in the country!”\u00a0urged a troop leader to author-illustrator Sarah Dillard. Sarah, whose Mouse Scouts<\/em>\u00a0chapter book series is\u00a0beloved by Daisies, Brownies, and Girl Scouts the nation over, had been invited to the Girl Expo in Vermont on\u00a0our state fairgrounds, and her publisher, Random House, arranged for a booth where we could set up and sell the books. What struck me was how many\u00a0Daisy and Brownie\u00a0leaders hadn’t known about the books and\u00a0were intensely interested in\u00a0them. It was as though Sarah had filled a need in the Girl Scout universe heretofore unrecognized.
\nThe last time we did this event was two years ago, when there were just two books in the Mouse Scouts<\/em> series. Now there are four, and you would not believe the\u00a0response Sarah had from young readers and troop leaders alike. She was greeted like a rock star. One 13-year-old Girl Scout ran over to her, shouting, “MOUSE SCOUTS! I’ve read these millions of times!” (The sweet spot for these books is in the age 6-10 range, so it was endearing to hear a young teen so enthusiastic about re-reading those favorites.
\nThis series is heavily illustrated with charming spot art throughout, and my favorite thing to do was to see a little person shyly eyeing the books, encourage them to open them up and look at the\u00a0drawings inside, and then point to Sarah. “She wrote the words\u00a0AND drew\u00a0all of the pictures,” I would say. Their eyes would widen in surprise, and they would look anew at Sarah. One little girl pointed to the cover. “Even this?”\u00a0she said. “Even that,” I said. “Even the wood frame around the mice!” They were uniformly astonished.\u00a0Some\u00a0of these kids are young enough that the word “author” carries little significance, but everyone is wowed by someone who can draw\u00a0terrific pictures.
\nOur table had been busy last time, but this year, we\u00a0were flocked with customers pretty much all day long (except for the 45 minutes when\u00a0a hammering-things workshop took place about 15 feet away from us). We sold loads of full series sets. It didn’t hurt that we set up a special deal to give a free patch with every full set. The patches are highly coveted, real embroidered\u00a0items that Sarah created:
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mouse-scouts-badge-1.jpg\"){kind=icon}
\nBy the time we wrapped for the day, Sarah had been invited to the New Hampshire Girl Scout Jamboree in the fall, and at least a dozen Scout leaders asked for Sarah’s card and told her she should be reaching out to troops across the country.
\nIt made me think about these wonderful audiences that are hungry to be reached, but lie outside the scope of the usual PR efforts. Like other alternative markets, it\u00a0seems as though there are potential gold-mine opportunities for publishers, but how do we convert those ideas into action?
\nA few years ago, I had the honor of attending a diversity conference for book industry people. I was lucky enough to be in a focus group with the amazing Just Us Books<\/a> publishers, Cheryl\u00a0and Wade Hudson, who have worked for diversity in children’s books for decades. They talked about their efforts to get their books into bookstores, but found that those efforts weren’t enough to reach all of the people who wanted and needed them. There just weren’t bookstores in\u00a0all of the neighborhoods where\u00a0the very children Cheryl and Wade were publishing for lived, and some of the bookstores that were there didn’t feature a diverse collection of titles. So they took books to church festivals and neighborhood parties and school events, where people would gather around the tables, delighted. Cheryl and Wade would hear comments like, “I had no idea there were kids like us in books!” They sold grocery bags full of books to an audience eager to embrace them, because they had gotten creative and met their audience where they lived.
\nIn this\u00a0challenging era, it seems to me that publishers might find some unexpected successes in\u00a0finding ways to bring their authors to\u00a0perhaps less traveled but smartly targeted conferences, and partnering with community bookstores\u00a0in neighborhoods in new and creative ways.
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_1312-1.jpg\")