The Ten Ways - Contents

The percentage of books sold to schools that list the
contents in the advert is over 50%.  

But I would ask why,.

Of course, contents are sometimes important - for example, I need to know if this book on GCSE music covers the entire syllabus of my exam board of choice - but to find that out I don't want to have to wade my way through an entire contents list - after all I can't remember the syllabus in my head.

What I really want to know is what the book will do for me and my students.  Will it take that group of teenagers who are doing music GCSE because the only alternative was biology and get them the magical grade C?

Will the story book you are selling encourage reluctant boy readers aged 7 and 8 to read?  If yes, then I am not going to start checking if the book is full of inappropriate materials - I am going to assume that everything is in order.   I don't care too much what's in it.  It is nice to know a bit about how this book works with this group where others fail - but that is the secondary issue.  The primary issue is what it achieves.   It gets my poor GCSE music students a grade C.  It gets my 7 year old boys to read something.

To see how it works, compares these openings.

Ryan, Jack and the Disappearing World

"Ryan and Jack are the two troublemakers of Fiveways Junior.  That's how they have been since they first walked into reception and Jack told the teacher he didn't like her skirt.  Now, however, as they enter year 4, with none of the long-established teachers particularly keen on having the boys in their form, the terrible twosome and their 25 comparatively well-behaved classmates find themselves facing a totally different prospect in Ms Czk."

And against that opening....

What is the simplest way to get non-reading year 4 boys to read?

"Over 50% of 7-8 year old boys not only never read anything at all, other than books they are required to read in class, they don't even have books read to them at home.

Overcoming this barrier is a significant issue, and can only be resolved by providing the children with stories that are both part of their world and simultaneously part un-worldly.  Research suggests that when this combination reaches the right balance, non-reading boys not only take notice of stories read to them in class, they demand the chance to take the book home and either have it read to them or read it themselves.   Suddenly the content becomes cool."

The point is that version one can and will sell books - but version two will probably sell more, because its headline is so much more interesting.   While the story explained in the first advert looks quite interesting, advert two takes us to where we want to be - having children who will read.   

If you like you can combine adverts one and two - but in doing so, you need to make sure you use advert two as the opening, and then give advert one as the illustration of the story you use to achieve this end.