In Part 3 about how to get schools to buy your book—culled from a plan of action created for my friend, client, and associate, Morri Stewart, and her fantasy novel Faltofar—curriculum developer turned creativity coach, Deborah Allen, explains who the school gatekeepers are and how to get those school gatekeepers to consider your book:
Let’s start with principals. It helps to know that principals are teachers first. They must teach for three years before they are eligible for enrollment in an administrator’s degree program. Approach selling your curriculum to a principal as you would a teacher. Add all the business reasons why into your pitch and then back that up with educational research. Know your cost per student and cost for the program (sometimes program will be used as a term instead of curriculum and materials, especially if you intend to lead, teach, or train teachers on the curriculum you are selling).
I [Deborah] have worked for two years on projects that have been implemented and others where funding could not be secured, and the ideas/program were tossed. This is normal. But you must understand that you cannot afford to spend this amount of time with an individual school and principal; you must think district, region, or state to make money in this business model.
If you are asking a school or district to add your curriculum, then they must determine and cut curriculum collectively. This will be a political process. In fact, after your principal agrees they want to look further because they want to purchase, there will be two barriers: money and politics.
For a principal to get buy-in from their teachers—especially given that our-backpack-is-too-full analogy we discussed in Part 1—you need to give the principal all the passion and learning reasons in a neat package that they can turn around and sell to their staff directly. Make it easy and clear for the principal. The principal is the gatekeeper. Principals have the best BS meter in the entire school, except for the janitor, but that’s another story.
Back to Linden:
Managing to get the school gatekeepers to consider your book is huge. In this series’ next installment, we’ll focus on marketing your book to the teachers themselves. But that post won’t hit until this summer. So, stay tuned.
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