Back in late 2014, David Scott, the 12 year old son of one of the principal’s of The Ian Scott Group, completed a Minecraft themed adventure novel. Both his parents were quite impressed with the work and talent David showed – and both thought the book was quite good. Especially considering David’s youthful age!

After the book was self-published and available on Amazon.com, The Ian Scott Group decided to try to help the youngster promote the book locally as well as on some Social Media. We created a Press Release, distributed it locally along with a link to a Press Kit page, and with David’s full involvement, spent some time posting, tweeting and discussing strategies to get more people learning about The Chosen (Tales Of The Ablockalypse).

Within less than a month of the book’s appearance in both kindle and paperback format, it had sold over 100 copies, much to David’s delight! Much of the initial interest was generated through a Facebook Page, while several reviewers completely unknown to the author or his family, left wonderful reviews about the book on Amazon.com. It was also nice for the family to see the reviews as it proved their own bias regarding the quality of the book to be justified.

While it was awesome to see copies of David’s book selling on Amazon, could we convince local retailers to carry it? With some phone calls and visits, David was finally able to see copies of his book available at BookLore, the top Orangeville book store! How cool is that for a 12 year old?

In addition to BookLore, The Chosen is also available at Orangeville InkJet with other local retailers expressing interest in carrying it.

The interest was timed perfectly as The Orangeville Banner, as a result of the Press Release we crafted, published a story about David and his book in their March 5th, 2015 edition. This alone has generated even more interest as local residents have discovered one of their own – and a kid at that – has written a novel worthy of garnering some really nice reviews. From there, it’s been commented on, shared, and interest continues to grow.

Additionally, other local news media are likely to have something in the near future while outlets including those in Windsor and Belleville, Ontario have also published the story on their online news websites.

It’s been wonderful to discover that not only has David’s book been read locally, but has been purchased by adult and juvenile readers throughout North America and we even know of one copy that has been shipped to Croatia!

We still have more work to do to help David earn future profits from his book, and there have been a number of other things that we’ve done that may also help with promotion.

Is there something you’d like to do but keep putting off? Perhaps you can take the advice of a recently published 12 year old, who upon being asked by a local reporter, “What advice would you give to someone else that wants to write a book?” responded with “Just do it.”

I have to admit to being very proud of my son when I heard his wise and practical suggestion.

Are you wanting to start a business, or are trying to increase sales in your present one? Perhaps you want to write a book yourself? Well.. just do it! And give us a call – maybe we can help along the way.

And by the way – if you can’t purchase the book from a local Orangeville retailer, go get The Chosen now, from Amazon.COM (US) or Amazon.CA (Canada).