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Publishing Yourself

Publishing your resources yourself is hard work and requires about £1000 in start up capital.

You will need the £1000 to buy a decent laser printer, binding and laminating machines, as well as address lists, paper and stamps.

What to Produce

You need to assess very carefully the type of resources that you are going to produce.

It makes no sesnse at all to try to print booklets to sell for £3 each. This kind of publication is never goingto give you a decent return for your time.

It is much better to produce high quality teacher guides, photocopiable resources or digital resources like CDs.

How Much to Charge

You can sell your resources for £30 - £100 each if they are unique and you are the first to spot the market.

These prices are not fanciful. In 2000 I produced The New Teacher's Survival Guide and sold 200 of them to schools at £70 each. This cost only a few pounds to produce, though the marketing cost was around £1000.

Response Rate

You will find the response rate is disappointing, no matter how marvellous your resource and marketing materials are. 3% is a good response.

Timing

Schools have money to spend only at certain times of the year. It is important that your marketing materials arrive when money is available. Good times to post your materials include late April, late August and early January.

Competition Drives Down Prices

You will find that other publishers produce similar resources, sometimes plagiarising yours and that you will need to drop your prices after the first 12 months.

Marketing Your Resources

This is the expensive part.

Your options:

attending education shows
a website
producing flyers to post to schools
Ebay

Education shows are expensive and your high priced resources are not likely to sell well to cash buyers. You are aiming for a small part of the school's capitation budget, not the teacher's wallet.

Websites only sell well where they can take credit cards. Schools do not have credit cards, they require invoices before cheques or transfers can be authorised.
Build a website, but use it to provide extra information on your resources and do not have high expectations of selling through it.

Teachers are used to picking up paper flyers in school for new resources. This is a good route to follow. You can design and print your own flyers for a very low price.
Postage is a major cost using this option. You will need to buy address lists as well as stamps.

Ebay is not a good marketplace for high mark up items such as you are going to be producing.

Address Lists

Jem Educational Marketing Services (Jem.co.uk) specialise in producing lists for educational publishers. You buy sheets of printed address labels to your exact specifications.

It is best to phone JEM on 01233 214022 to discuss your marketing ideas. They can give you lists of state or independent schools, 8-11, 11-14, 11-16, 11-18 schools, single sex and mixed schools as well as sixth form colleges.

Privacy Policy

This website does NOT collect any data that identifies individual users. You will not be asked for names, email addresses or phone numbers.

Spam policy

We loathe spam, unsolicited email as much as you do. We regard email marketing as a form of spam and will never send unsolicited emails.

Legal Necessity

The advice on this site is the opinion of the owner. The success of the strategies outlined here will depend on the abilities and efforts of the individual. No responsibility can be accepted for any loss, financial or otherwise, that may arise from individuals following this advice.