The Wall Street Journal writes in-depth on the Dr. Seuss franchise, so much a staple of Penguin Random House that it was cited a number of times in the company’s financial report earlier on Friday. The peg is the September 9 publication of a second collection of “lost” magazine work, Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories, following on an earlier 2011 collection that hit No. 1 on the NYT bestseller list. As a result Random House Children’s announced a first printing of 250,000 copies. The publisher said they have sold 600 million copies of Dr. Seuss books in 17 […]
Children's
Kids Books Matter More In Print and In Store, As Teens Warm Up to eBooks — and Lose Interest In Reading
The third-annual Launch Kids conference kicked off Monday morning with a block of data presentations from Nielsen, ReaderLink, the Insight Strategy Group, and PlayCollective, painting a comprehensive picture of both the commercial marketplace for children’s print and ebooks as well as insights into how children use digital media. Nielsen president Jonathan Nowell and director Jo Henry underscored key trends as measured by the company’s combined data streams, following last fall’s acquisition of Bowker’s business intelligence and commerce solutions. (For clarity below, Nielsen Bookscan is the actual point-of-sale data collected from physical and online stores. The “surveys” are the former Bowker products, […]
People, Children’s Imprints, Etc.
At Crown, Sarah Pekdemir has been named senior marketing manager, Crown Trade. At Behrman House, Dena Neusner has been promoted to executive editor. The New York Public Library will pay $2.15 million — funded in large part by a private donation — to purchase 190 boxes of Tom Wolfe‘s papers, “including drafts, outlines and research materials for his four novels and 12 other books as well as his uncollected journalism.” As previewed earlier in the week, World Book Night US has addred three YA titles to the list of books to be given away on April 22, 2014: Zora and […]
People, Etc.
Samantha Edelson has been promoted to marketing manager for Macmillan Audio. Mobifusion has hired Michelle Lewy as director of publisher accounts, based in New York. Most recently, she was director of digital media services at Baker and Taylor. At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Siena Koncsol has been promoted to publicist. Longtime Reed Exhibitions executive with oversight for BEA, svp Courtney Muller has resigned from her position. BEA show director Steve Rosato notes that Reed had realigned show responsibilities in August and put BEA under the supervision of Greg Topalian, a former BEA show director. Rosato now reports to Topalian. He writes: “On […]
Children’s: Joyce and Moonbot Studios Launch Atheneum Line; Jim Carrey Pairs with Perseus
William Joyce and Moonbot Studios (which he co-founded) are building on the success of the picture book The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (based on their bestselling app) with a whole line of Moonbot Books, for Atheneum. The line launches with The Mischievians this fall and aims to publish “at least one or two books per season,” including a picture book based on their successful app The Numberlys. Moonbot Books will be edited by Atheneum editorial director Caitlyn Dlouhy and illustrated by Joyce and other Moonbot artists. Separately, actor Jim Carrey got a lot of attention in March […]
Corporate: HMH Buys Tribal Nova; Penguin Partners with Mind Candy; Amazon Defends “Heavy Investments”
Two new acquisitions highlight publishers’ increasing interest in game development. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced they acquired Montreal-based educational technology company Tribal Nova, which develops digital games, products and services for pre-school children. The Tribal Nova team will continue to operate out of Montreal, though they will be absorbed into HMH’s Content and Product Innovation group, dedicated to the incubation and development of next-generation content for both K-12 and consumer markets. “The combination of Tribal Nova’s game development expertise with HMH’s proven educational content and learning design capabilities will enable HMH to bring a more holistic and personalized gaming experience to market,” […]