One of my stories, THE JOURNEY OF OLIVER K. WOODMAN, is in a HMH reading textbook, Journeys.
It’s usually read in the spring and one activity that students often do is to send a laminated paper version of Oliver on a trip to visit folks. 
Download the 2016 Lesson Plan pack, which includes Sample Chapters from five novels.(24 MB, zip file from Dropbox).
The Lesson Plan pack includes a simple paper pattern for Oliver. This is an example or case study of an easy ongoing promotion. First, I’ll explain what happened, and then we’ll look at how you can do the same for your book.
Interact with Readers
This year, Cynthia Wells, a teacher from Quitman, AR, contacted me and said that Kailin, her student, would like to send me her Oliver for a week’s visit. Of course, I can’t always do this, but this was a good year to say, “Yes!”
When a student sends an Oliver around, they ask people to take photos of Oliver in different places. See the Oliver Pinterest board.
Oliver Sees the Sights
Here are some things Oliver did with me.
Oliver Meets Rowdy
Of course, Oliver couldn’t leave without reading Rowdy, which is my Summer, 2016 book. The pirate captain, Miss Whitney Black McKee, and Oliver had a nice chat and compared adventures and travels.
Preorder ROWDY now and it will be delivered on May 25
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And then, Oliver settled in to read Rowdy’s story. Imagine Captain McKee’s dismay when Oliver found a misspelled word in her book! Oh, my! It was lucky that Oliver came along to save the day!
Finally, here’s Kailin reading another of my books, I WANT A DOG, to her class. A happy reader! That’s what we like to see!
Your Promotion
Here’s a couple lessons for your promotion.
- Lesson Plans. Provide Downloadable Lesson plans on your website, Pinterest boards, etc.
- Interact. When asked to interact with readers, do it if your schedule allows.
- Fun. I took Oliver places that I thought would be fun. I didn’t worry about promotional possibilities while playing tour guide for Oliver. It was just for fun.
- Generous. Be generous if you can. I sent along an extra paperback book, just for fun.
- Permission. When the teacher contacted me, I asked and received permission to share the photos of the student.
- Share. I’ll be sharing this post on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Be sure all your social media accounts are in order before you start something like this.
- Thanks. I’ll be sure to thank the teacher for thinking about sending Oliver to visit!
Darcy, one thing I love about you is that you’re such a think-outside-of-the-box type of person. The whole idea of Oliver K. Woodman and how you used the story in these lesson plans is fantastic. And to couple it with Rowdy, too, is great. Oliver K. Woodman is something every teacher of young kids should be using. Thanks for sharing it with us writers and keeping the bar high.