Reaching Unique Audiences to Improve Education

Matt said:
What things do you find exclusive to the educational publishing world that you don't see elsewhere in the industry?

I’ve worked in two separate areas of educational publishing — editing textbooks and readers for students, and editing publications for policy-makers, district and school leaders, and teachers. In this work, I’ve noticed that, not only are there aspects of educational publishing that are exclusive to this niche market, there are many aspects that are unique to the separate audiences within educational publishing.

Appealing to Multiple Personalities
Textbook publishing caters to very specific audiences that often know exactly what they are looking for; so the writing and marketing have to be carefully geared to these audiences’ well-defined wants and needs. Readers may very often just go looking for a new novel, or cookbook, or memoir, with an undefined idea of what they specifically want. Very seldom will teachers (or district leaders, or state curriculum designers) just go looking for a new textbook without knowing exactly want they need in that book. You need to clearly define how your books will meet the needs of that school’s or state’s curriculum, and how it will meet those needs better than previous editions.

Furthermore, textbooks are one of the few genres that are not purchased by the end audience. They have to have to appeal to at least three extremely different audiences simultaneously:
-the students (end audience) who will learn from the books, but never have the option to purchase that book versus another;
-the teachers who will use the books to deliver lessons, but also may have no choice in which book to use; and
-the curriculum specialists who will select the books for the schools, but may never use the books themselves.

So textbooks have to be written for one audience, but in a way that will appeal to a very different audience: the purchaser. Particularly in public education, textbooks will be chosen at the district or state level. So the audiences that use the books on a daily basis may have little input in purchasing the books. The books have to address students’ learning needs and teachers’ teaching needs; but before they can do that, they have to address the needs of the curriculum designers by addressing the appropriate content in an appealing manner. Very few other genres face the challenge of meeting such a wide variety of needs simultaneously, or appealing to an audience that will not be the end user of the book.

Appealing to Busy Personalities
The publications I’ve worked on for policymakers and district and school leaders have, in someway, faced fewer challenges in addressing audiences. For example, the challenge in creating a successful policy report is not addressing the right audience at the right state in the purchasing process; it’s getting the audience to actually read the document. State educational leaders, district superintendents, and school-level teachers are all bombarded with “the most pressing issue in education” on a regular basis. Multiple initiatives are always pulling them in different directions, promising solutions to educational crises. Whether you’re developing training materials for a professional development workshops or a research brief on the importance of quality career/technical education, to truly reach your audience in this market, you have to grab its attention and then immediately gain its trust. You have to establish yourself as a credible source with a proven record for improving education, not a flash-in-the-pan publisher that can only provide quick-fix solutions; and you have to do so before the next educational crisis comes along and steals your audience’s attention.

Improving Education through Educational Publishing
These two challenges — creating textbooks that appeal to both the purchaser and the reader, and gaining the attention of teachers and policymakers — are things I’m still trying to master. If you have experience in what makes a successful textbook or what teachers and policymakers need to hear in order to read a publication, I hope you will share some of your suggestions. Improving the information that reaches our policymakers and the educational materials that reach our students will only further improve education. And improving education, from public policy and legislation to classroom practices, is a critical issue that we all face.