Most people find marketing a challenge, unless they're marketing professionals. So, if you're able to consult or partner with marketing experts at your institution, it's highly recommended. They could help you develop a general plan for marketing open textbooks or perhaps help get the word out about a specific release. In addition, many universities have branding guidelines, that provide policies and guidance on messaging and visual identity, including logos, fonts, colors, and so on.

Branding

Without conscientious brand strategy, your marketing will likely be more scattershot and less effective.

Your publishing organization will have a brand, whether you're intentional about it or not—and it is important not to conflict with the university brand (and the university library brand). The purpose of your library publishing organization’s brand is to develop and articulate your unique identity.

In addition, book series are also commonly promoted as a brand. Individual, stand-alone titles do not generally form a brand, but authors often do, consciously or not. Think Stephen King and Isabelle Allende, for example.

Brand strategy is an extension and manifestation of the goals you set (and periodically adapt) for your publishing organization. Fundamentally, your organization’s brand is your raison d’être, the reason you exist, the value you add to your stakeholders and customers.

Branding evolves from your mission and goals, informing your promotional strategies and activities for individual publications and projects. But how do goals translate to brand strategy?

The key is knowing what unique value your product or services offers—why your organization matters. If your mission is to “provide support and resources to the University community for creating, curating, and disseminating open educational works,” this is also what you want people to think of when they think of your brand.

Adapted from Impact_6_Marketing_Promotion_Publicity, Impact_6_Narrative, Library Publishing Curriculum (CC BY).

Marketing

Once you know your brand, you can focus on marketing and promotion to get the word out. It also means branding and design, and crafting a pitch that highlights what is special about the book. Was it created with students? Has it been peer reviewed prior to publication? Is the author a pre-eminent expert in the field? Perhaps it is the first book of its kind. Whatever it is, highlighting its assets, in addition to its open license, may make for a more successful campaign.

Read more about marketing strategy, and find related resources in the OER Promotions Guide by Janet Swatscheno at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Engaging Authors in Marketing

Even for authors who write an open textbook for their students and their class, when asked to think more broadly, they may say their manuscript is for a “general audience” or should be read by a “wide audience.” This is natural; most authors want their creations to be read by the widest audience possible. But it’s not very helpful in designing marketing and promotional strategies. How can you reach a “general audience”?

To find an audience, and for promotion to be effective, you need the inside story.

For example, knowing as many details as possible about the author will help you understand the target audience. For example, in what field is he/she a specialist, what membership organizations does he/she belong to, or what conferences does he/she attend?

Many publishers develop a marketing questionnaire to send to authors at the earliest stage (typically, after a contract or publishing agreement has been signed).

Other tools that help you to determine the audience include the project proposal, the manuscript itself, comments from peer reviewers, and meetings with the author and acquiring editor.

The title and cover are critical components of brand positioning, too. This may include the look and feel of the interface, fonts, and other design elements. Titles and covers should connect with the intended audience. The title, preferably, should include words that its audience will likely use as search terms.

Catalog copy and other promotional materials must be planned and developed with the intended audience in mind also.

Adapted from Impact_6_Marketing_Promotion_Publicity, Impact_6_Narrative, Library Publishing Curriculum (CC BY).

Sharing and Distribution

Here are some places to distribute an open textbook:

Open Textbook Library
Institutional repository
Learning Registry
Learning management system (LMS)
Faculty peers
Departments
Professional academic organizations
OER Commons
Merlot
Personal website
Campus bookstore
District website

One thing to keep in mind as you decide where to share your textbook: Whenever you make updates, you’ll want to update all distribution channels if necessary.

Open Textbook Library

The Open Textbook Library is a growing resource for higher education open textbooks. By including a textbook in the library, authors make it easier for other faculty to discover, use and review the textbook. In addition, open textbooks in the library may be reviewed by faculty who participate in workshops at institutions or consortia that are Open Education Network members. All textbooks in the Open Textbook Library are either used at multiple higher education institutions or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society or professional organization.

Open Textbook Library criteria: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/books

The Open Textbook Library makes MARC records available.

Adapted from Where to Share in Authoring Open Textbooks by Open Education Network (CC BY).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Some publishers choose to assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to their open textbooks. DOIs identify content rather than location, making it a persistent identifier. In other words, the DOI will be always associated with the textbook, regardless of its web address.

There are a few membership organizations that offer DOIs, including CrossRef and DOI. So, your publishing program may want to consider joining one of the organizations if you'd like to assign DOIs to your publications.

Typically a DOI applies to all versions of a work, regardless of whether it's an EPUB or PDF or another version. In terms of selecting which version to assign the DOI, usually publishers select the preferred version (full color print, for example), because they want to drive traffic to that version.

As an open textbook example, University of North Texas has their DOIs resolve to the book's Pressbooks URL.

Metadata

Metadata are data about data, and essentially act as keywords. It is key in marketing an open textbook, because metadata makes the textbook discoverable during a search. In the context of open textbooks, common metadata includes the title, author, subject area, description and other information about the book and its publication. By sharing metadata, authors and publishers make their textbook easier for others to find.

Typically authors and publishers include metadata during the publishing process. For example, the "Book Info" fields in Pressbooks are where you can create and save the metadata for your book.

There is ongoing conversation about OER metadata practices. Here are a few resources if you'd like to dig deeper:

Additional Resources

Communications in Self-Publishing Guide by Lauri Aesoph