Skippy Dimpledot, one of a number of Christmas elves on the market, began popping up in a handful of St. Louis independent retail stores last year.

He already has a devoted following in a small east Texas city, his creator's hometown. And ever since a local creative agency began investing in him last year in a bid to go national, his fan base has been slowly growing in St. Louis, too.

Part of that is due to the author's visits to area private schools, as she did last week.

"When the author has gone out to a local school and talked about (Skippy) and read the book, it really makes a difference with sales," said Marge Versprille. She's the owner of Imagination Toys in Ladue, where the products have been selling well.

Many toys on the market angle for children's attention, and only some make it onto a national stage. So the effort to propel Skippy provides an interesting case study.

Margie Brody, who grew up in Clayton, co-wrote the Skippy Dimpledot books with her daughter, Claire. They are based on a family tradition started many years ago in their Lufkin, Texas, home.

Skippy shows up in children's bedrooms after Thanksgiving, and the children write letters to him. Through letters written by their parents, Skippy responds and a dialogue begins. On Christmas eve, he returns to the North Pole.

"It's almost retro in that it takes you back to writing letters," Brody said. "It's a fun, magical tradition."

Brody, 51, self-published the first book in 2004 — and now has a line of six plush elves as well as a second book that came out last year. She estimates she's sold about 6,000 books and more than 12,000 elves.

Through a family connection, she was introduced last year to FireHydrant Creative Studios, based in Huntleigh. The marketing firm believes in the product enough that it has taken the somewhat unusual step of investing six figures in the brand.

"In Lufkin, Texas, they are rock stars," said Michael Margraf, FireHydrant's chief executive. "Every time she does a reading there, there's a line out the door. We're like, 'If it works in Lufkin, there's no reason it can't work in other places as well.'"

Margraf said he was impressed by the educational aspect of the letter-writing. And he was further encouraged by the positive reception the books and toys received by his and his colleagues' children.

"They went crazy with it," he said. "They sleep with them. It's their favorite toy."

Since it has come on board, FireHydrant has come up with a new logo, built a website and developed an iPad application through which children can write letters to the elves. The 99-cent app hit the iTunes store this week.

But on their road to building a wider audience, they will have to contend with competing Christmas elves. One of the most widely known is Elf on the Shelf, which recently had a related animated show air on CBS.

The elf category has definitely been growing in prominence in recent years, buoyed in part by the 2003 movie "Elf" with Will Ferrell, said Jim Silver, a toy analyst with timetoplaymag.com.

The success of the Elf on the Shelf shows that there's an opportunity in the market for an elf brand, he said. But at the same time, Skippy's advocates need to make sure they differentiate it from the others.

"It's a long haul to develop a brand," Silver said. "But there's definitely a possibility."

These days, many retailers are looking for exclusive brands, so that provides an opportunity for new toys, he added.

Margraf and Brody say they're not too worried about the competition, saying the letter-writing component helps distinguish their Christmas elf. They note that the tradition connected to Elf on the Shelf is that the elf watches over the children and reports to Santa Claus whether they have been naughty or nice.

When Brody began writing the first book with her daughter, she thought it would be a fun mother-daughter project.

"We sent our manuscript to several publishers and got several rejections back," she said. "That's when we decided to self-publish it."

They used their own savings to publish the first book through Xlibris and to have plush elves made to go along with the books.

Since FireHydrant came on board, the brand has switched printers to Walsworth Publishing in Marceline, Mo., to get a better rate on the books. It has also been taking Skippy to trade shows in Atlanta and Dallas.

"It's a hard process," Margraf said. "For the big retailers, all of their holiday purchases for the upcoming year are done by February."

Some national folks have shown interest, he said. But in the meantime, they are trying to build a more grass-roots following through social media and growing in targeted regions such as St. Louis.

Margraf acknowledges that the products didn't sell well in some St. Louis area bookstores last year. So they decided to scale back and sell the products only where they were most successful.

"We found that the toy stores and candy stores were a better fit for us," he said.

Doug Murdoch, owner of Spicer's Toys & Candy in Ladue, said he liked that only a few other local retailers carry the Skippy brand.

"It's always nice to sell things that other people don't have," he said..

The books are also sold at the bookstore at Villa Duchesne, where Brody attended school and later taught before moving to Texas in 1985. Last week, she visited the school's elementary — Oak Hill School — where she read from the books and explained the process of putting together a story book.

"The biggest challenge is that you really need to explain the tradition," Brody said. "So the best situation is to come visit children at school. Once they understand it, it sells itself."