Bookselling in the 21st Century (Part One): Kids' and Teen Fiction - by Laurie Steed [23.11.2009]

I recently returned to bookselling after a six month hiatus. The break got me thinking about what has changed in book retail since I first started working in books more than four years ago.

The first thing I noted is just how slick the book industry is getting, particularly in regards to kids books. While certain kids’ fiction has always been linked to films and TV-shows, the level of this cross-media promotion has really accelerated in the era of multi-platform media magnates.

This level of acceleration was best accentuated by Hachette Australia's appointment of former Universal Pictures Marketing Manager Hannah Norman as Brand Manager for Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in March, 2009. Hannah's role, put broadly, was to entice new readers to the Twilight saga through "innovative consumer marketing activity and strategic initiatives with the book trade, film and merchandising partners." Put simply, this means to synergise the multi-platform release of Twilight products to best capitalise on the brand, so that the books, films and tie-in products all sell in the maximum possible numbers.

As it relates to bookselling, this means multiple versions of the same text (Stephenie Meyer's New Moon, recently released at the cinema, is available in a standard edition, film tie-in, audio CD, and Kindle version, while its predecessor Twilight is available in all the above formats, plus a special edition featuring the first chapter of New Moon) and any number of spin-off merchandise. This merchandise includes tie-in board games, films, DVD's, jewellery, jewellery boxes, throw-pillows, and journals...and many more items too numerous to list in a 700 word blog.

Working at an independent bookstore, we don't have the full collection of Twilight merchandise, but they are available in most of the chain stores, and online retailer Amazon has its own Twilight store embedded within the website.

This trend of multi-platform promotion will likely shape child and teen publishing more and more in the coming years. 2009 will see cinema releases of childrens’ classics Where the Wild Things Are and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, while Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Coraline also made their cinematic debuts earlier in the year.

For the moment, the kid's market is clearly owned by the Twilight and Harry Potter series, and with tie-in films still to come from both franchises, their success seems guaranteed for the near future.

And what does this mean for independent publishing? It means, quite simply, that local publishers must remain innovative in both their titles and their approach. When capturing kid's minds, branding undoubtedly plays its part, but even Business Week's brand channel concedes there is more to classic kid's lit than clever branding. It breaks down success to four factors: narrative, ambiguity, mystery and entertainment.

I admit, it takes a particularly astute marketing genius to spot narrative as integral to a book's success, but Business Week's chosen criteria point to a more important lesson: In attempting to break into kid's publishing, both writers and publishers often define what they think kids should read, instead of appealing to what they might actually want to read.

Local authors such as Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton have capitalised on this principle by creating kid's fiction focused on rogue bums and flat cats instead of babbling brooks and loving parents. Not surprisingly, the books are huge, and the authors are minor celebrities to the kids who adore them.

In an increasingly cluttered global kid's marketplace, independent publishers need to be similarly innovative. Griffiths and Denton have succeeded not only through the release of interesting titles, but also by being available to their book-buying public through school visits, in-store appearances and informative, multimedia websites.

To succeed in today's kids and teen market, local publishers can do one of two things: they can produce multi-platform titles and merchandise to "harness" children's loyalty, or they can try new things to stand out from an increasingly homogenised crowd.

I know which option I prefer.

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