We recently connected with Erica Meltzer and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Erica , thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

In the mid-2000s, I was a twenty-something working at an administrative job and tutoring on the side. Most of my students attended Manhattan private schools, and although the kids were generally great, I started to become uncomfortable about my role in giving yet another advantage to students who already had such a big leg up in the college admissions process. As someone who did not come from an affluent family and had navigated the college application process largely on her own, I was really shocked at just how much extra support some kids received. I started my original blog in 2008 with the goal of reducing the disparity: every time I came up with a new tip or idea during a tutoring session, I would go and post it on my blog so that anyone could have access to it for free. That goal of leveling the playing field has driven what I do ever since.

Erica , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the author of a series of reading and writing guides for a variety of standardized tests. I started with the SAT® in 2011 and over the last dozen-plus years have expanded to the ACT®, GRE®, AP® (English Language and English Literature), and ESL (IELTS®). As a private tutor for more than a decade, I got a close-up view of the concepts that students tend to find most challenging, as well as the ways in which that knowledge can be effectively taught.

I didn’t start out with the goal of publishing a series of books (or even one, for that matter!). Rather, it was something I sort of slid into, over a long period of time. As mentioned in the story behind my mission, I started my original blog with the goal of making high-quality test-preparation material widely available. During that same period, I did a number of small jobs writing practice questions for independent test-preparation companies. For some reason, though, it didn’t occur to me to put two and two together and actually publish my own materials.

That changed one day when I made a trip to my local Barnes & Noble in search of some extra SAT practice material for a student I was tutoring. Over the course of an hour or so, I flipped through the reading and writing sections of every guide I could find, growing progressively more shocked at how inaccurate most of the material was: questions that were too hard, questions that were too easy, questions that tested concepts not covered on the real test, questions and passages that just felt off… And I thought, “I could do so much better than this!” That attempt ended up taking two-and-a-half years, but my first book, “The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar,” was published in 2011. By then, my blog had developed a decent following, and the book sold well. So I wrote another, and then another… Things sort of spiraled from there, and in 2015 I stopped tutoring to focus on writing and publishing full time.

I think there are a couple of main things that set my books apart from their competitors. First, their extreme fidelity to the tests and the realism of the practice questions: I try to keep things as authentic as possible in terms of content, tone, and style so that students will know exactly what to expect when they sit for the real thing.

I’m also very careful to tailor explanations to the appropriate level of detail. On one hand, I go out of my way never to overcomplicate things if a simple explanation can suffice; but on the other hand, I’ll go into a lot of depth if a particular concept requires it (for example, the numerous ways in which commas or subject-verb agreement can be tested on the SAT or ACT). In addition, my books don’t assume a lot of prior knowledge since students arrive at the test-prep process with widely different high school experience, and they test key concepts in new and progressively more challenging ways that are designed to make kids think—not just plug in the same type of answer repeatedly by rote.

Finally, I try to align my books with the various official guides put out by the organizations that create the real exams, cross-indexing lists of their questions with the concepts in my books so that students can practice applying them to authentic material.

I periodically get thank-you emails from kids who have used my books and scored higher than they ever thought possible. In some cases, they’ve earned scholarships that have made college unexpectedly affordable for them. Those messages are always immensely gratifying.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I use a combination of platforms. Because my goal is to make my books available to the widest possible audience, selling on Amazon is a necessity. It’s always been responsible for the vast majority of my sales. In addition, however, I sell through my website (www.thecriticalreader.com/books) using the WooCommerce WordPress plug-in, which allows me to offer the books at a lower price point while also drawing traffic to my site. There are some logistics and costs involved—we use a storage and shipping company with a warehouse in the Midwest—but on the whole, it’s worked out well. I’ve also experimented with distributing through IngramSpark, which supplies to bookstores, but there were some unexpected conflicts with Amazon involving the Buy Box, so I’ve mostly withdrawn from that platform.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When I published my first book, I was completely ignorant about the importance of cover design. My primary aim was to make it available as quickly as I could, and to have it stand out visually on Amazon. I didn’t have the time or the budget to hire a professional designer, so I used one of the templates provided by CreateSpace (now part of Amazon KDP). I chose a canary yellow background with red lettering in something like Comic Sans font. It definitely got noticed, but not necessarily in a good way! One day, the mother of one of my students came to me after her son’s session and told me that his English teacher had held up my book in class and announced that, believe it or not it, was the best book for SAT grammar prep, and that, really, they shouldn’t judge it by its cover. I was simultaneously proud and mortified. That was when I realized it was probably worth my while to invest in a designer who actually knew what they were doing. Luckily, I found someone outstanding (Deborah Bradseth of DB Cover Design), who came up with the clean, professional template that I now use for all my books, and whom I’ve now worked with for about a decade.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thecriticalreader.com

Image Credits
Lisa Hancock (headshot); DB Cover Design (book images)