18. Promotion & Sales |
19.
Support
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| In many countries, signing books are sold by the production companies
themselves. However, little or no attention (or money) are usually available at the end of the production line for promotion and
sales.
Many companies don't have a catalogue, and sell their productions only to members of their organisation or to members of the Deaf community. As a consequence, public libraries and the general public are rarely aware of the existence of signing books in their country, and/or the publication of new titles. |
People who pick up your production in a library or a bookstore, are hardly ever able to watch the video before they buy or lend it. The cover of the video-box or CD-ROM should therefore be attractive as well as informative.
For bookstores and libraries to include your productions in their catalogues correctly, they must be able to find certain information on the outside or inside cover of the video-box or CD-ROM:
 | the title of the production; |
| the author - and in the case of a translation: the title, author and publication year of the original production; |
| a clearly visible indication that this is a production in sign language; |
| the name and address of the publisher; |
| possibly the name of the producer; |
| publication year; |
| duration of the video; |
| the target group e.g. age-group; |
| name(s) of the signer(s); |
| wether or not there is a voice-over; |
| whether or not there are captions; |
| a short description of the contents; |
| a short description of the visuals; |
| if applicable: a table of contents with time-codes; |
| last but not least: credits and thanks to the organisation(s) that financed the production. |
Promote your production(s) through flyers, catalogues, a web-site. Try to include the mainstream community in your promotional activities: public libraries, mainstream organisations, etc..
Include pictures and screen-prints in your catalogues. Show videoclips of your productions on your website.
Make a video-catalogue on videotape or CD-ROM, with short clips to illustrate your productions.
If there is a national database for sign language material: submit your information to this database so people will be able to find you and your productions.
The price range for signing books varies from free distribution to over 100 Euros per production. Many sign language productions on the market today are cheaper than comparable mainstream productions. Viewers in your country may not be used to paying high prices (or even paying at all) for information in sign language.
For most productions, outside funding is therefore indispensable. When you apply for funding, include funds for marketing, promotion, and after-sales services in your budget.
You may also have to include 'protection' in your marketing plans. Protection against illegal copying and unauthorised use may range from a copyright statement in the trailer of your production, to making it technically impossible to make unauthorised copies.
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19.
Support
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Marketing