Digital Trend Report: What’s New in Digital Publishing & at Parragon
Every so often, it’s good to take a look at where things are going in the publishing industry – and where things are headed at your own company! In the purple halls of Parragon (some of our halls are actually purple), in trade press, and at every major publishing event, digital media often takes center stage.
So what’s new in digital? Let’s take a look at a few of the key areas of interest – and what Parragon has been up to in those areas.
1. While the effect on sales of enhanced ebook features such as video and additional interactivity are still not conclusive, digital retailers across the board have reported that their top selling children’s titles all include read-along audio.
2. Consumers are upset and confused over ebook pricing because they – rightly – don’t understand why an ebook may cost them almost as much as an original hardcover print book.
3. Also at London Book Fair, publishers were urged to look to markets outside of the US and the UK for ebook sales and growth.
4. On a related note, Publisher’s Weekly reported last year that books in Germany were 1% of total ebook sales in 2011, but the launch of the Amazon Kindle, Google Editions, and the iBookstore in Germany in mid-2011 has caused a significant increase in attention. The expectation is for ebook sales in Germany to reach 15% of total sales by 2015.
“What is Parragon’s response to these trends?” you may be asking yourself as you read these statistics. Don’t worry – I’m going to tell you!
1. We’ve recorded over 30 audio tracks for our children’s picture books to create enhanced books with read-along audio – early feedback has been great! We want all of our children’s ebooks in the future to contain audio, as it is one of the advantages of the format.
2. Our digital content, just like our print content, is priced at great value for consumers. We’ve always felt confident that our value far outweighs our pricing, and we remain so in the digital area. Affordable books are what we’re all about!
3. Our books go wherever we can sell them! Currently, our books are available throughout the US, UK, Europe, and Australia through the iBookstore and will be available in every country that Kobo reaches. We’re also prepared for Nook launches outside of North America.
4. Our first four translated titles are available in the German iBookstore now! Farmer Fred is available in German as Bauer Bolle! Check out his adventures here.
As a company, Parragon is committed to our content. We want as many people as possible to enjoy our recipes, our children’s stories and rhymes, our crafts and stationery, and our reference materials – in the way you want to enjoy them. We’re not going to stop making print books, but we’ll continue making ebooks, apps, and more – as long as they provide the best experience for our content, and for you!
Enjoy Reading with your Little Learners!
Here in the Parragon office we've been trying to recall our earliest memories of being read to as children.
I can remember how delighted I was to receive a box-set of short stories about frogs on my fifth birthday. I sat with my Grandad and made him read every book to me, one after another. They even had to drag me away to blow out the candles on my cake! The thing is it’s not just the books that we have fond memories of; it’s the people who read them to us.
The British PM David Cameron recently was quoted urging parents to read to their children more:
“Try to read to your children every night, however busy you are in life”*
Some may question the importance of doing this with toddlers and babies, who don’t fully understand the story concept, but the amazing truth is, children are never too young to be read to. In fact, studies show that the earlier babies are exposed to reading, the more they will enjoy reading and learning - and the better they will perform in school.
But more than just being a way of encouraging development, reading is a great way to interact and communicate with babies right from the start: stimulating their curiosity about life in a fun and engaging way.
Our vibrant new interactive range of books 'Little Learners' ('Little Me' in Australia), is aimed at children aged 0-3. When we were developing the series, we were lucky to have educational consultant Geraldine Taylor on hand to advise us. Here are Geraldine’s top tips for enjoying books with little ones:
• How pictures help:
Learning to read is part of a young child’s drive to make sense of more and more details. They need to have fun looking at lots of features in pictures before they can see that the letter a is different from the letter d, for example.
Later, when children are learning to read with their teachers at nursery and school, they will be reading books with only a few works on each page. It’s pictures, and the stories and rhymes that we read to children, that inspire them to want to learn to read for themselves.
• Words and pictures:
At first, children see words as black squiggle patterns on the page. It’s helpful to explain that we call these squiggles words and that they tell us what to say. It’s the words that tell you the story, and one day, when your child can read, the words will tell them the story, too.
• Talk and more talk:
Talking is a skill fundamental to life and learning, especially reading. Children need a stock of words they understand and use. Take the time to talk together all you can! Talking about stories, rhymes and the pictures on the page is great for developing this skill.
• What’s that sound?
Being able to listen, interpret and respond to what we hear is another vital life skill, and essential for reading, too. Our alphabetic reading system is built on being able to tell one sound from another. Play lots of listening games with your toddler (ssssh, close your eyes, what can you hear?), and have fun with sound effects. Go out listening and talk about what you hear in the garden, on a walk, at home. Story and rhyme books are ideal to develop listening skills, as they introduce sound effects for the characters – especially the animals!
To find out more about Little Learners / Little Me, visit: www.parragon.com/littlelearners / www.parragon.com/littleme
* Source: London Evening Standard, 2012 http://bit.ly/zmN8nf
Parragon Children’s Editors: Behind the Purple Door
(Huge thanks to Laura Baker from our children's team for letting us have an exclusive look into her day-to-day life at Parragon!)
My day starts, as I’m sure it does for most people, with the cheery jingle of my email application opening and the whoosh of new emails downloading. I read through them and deal with them as much as I can (flag, file or delete to keep my inbox and mind clear, as I learned in a useful course on email management many years ago!). Several of these emails are reminders of upcoming dates when material, such as book covers, is needed for sales, so I update my schedule, calendar and project list. Things are always changing, and we’re juggling dozens of book projects at a time, so just keeping on top of everything is a big part of the job!
Once I feel organized and on top of things, I’m ready to get down to business. Today starts with checking some proofs that have come in from the repro house (where a book is prepared for print once it’s left us) for a new picture book that I’ve been working on. I check for about the hundredth time that there are no typos, that all the text is in the right place and that all the copyright and branding information is correct, and I pass the proofs on to the designer to check that the colours are printing properly and everything looks as it should. The proofs pass our inspection, and the email with our approval is sent to the production controller. The book is now on its way to the printer, and I can’t wait to see it in print!
Next, I’m on to a couple of touch-and-feel books that haven’t yet gone into production. The text and illustrations are in place, so I print the pages out and send them in three different directions: to a proofreader to check the UK text, an Americanizer to show us any places where the text needs to change for the US audience and an educational consultant for a final check that all the words, pictures and concepts are suited to the age range.
Once the print-outs are in the post, it’s on to checking some board books that have come in from the printer. These are advance copies that we get before thousands of them get printed – so it’s a last-chance check! Luckily, all looks good. Huge sigh of relief!
It’s eleven o’clock, so I settle in with a cup of tea to read through some manuscripts that have come in from an author for a new series of four picture books. I know these books could be huge sellers, so I want to get the stories just right. I read through them several times, jotting down comments and suggestions. It’s important that the stories are sweet, emotive and exciting for both the child listening and the parent who will be reading them aloud – again and again and again! I brainstorm with the designers, to be sure that the stories will lend themselves well to illustrations. I ring the author, who is very responsive and comes up with some other exciting ideas too, so it’s back in his hands for the next draft.
After a busy morning, it’s off to the gym to work out and rejuvenate myself for a just-as-busy afternoon…
This afternoon I’m settling into a big project. For nearly the past year, one of the designers and I have been working on a 224-page craft book. We’ve come up with the book plan for what types of crafts would be included, we’ve chatted with two craft makers and had them create the crafts, we’ve done a photoshoot of the finished products, I’ve had an author write up the instructions and add some fun titles and introductions, we’ve had the book designed and illustrated where necessary, proofread, checked by the craft makers, checked by a consultant to ensure everything works and is right for the age group… Phew! This afternoon we’re inputting the comments from the proofreader, consultant and craft makers, and doing our own final check.
I get my head down and go chapter by chapter, stopping only a few times for emails and to discuss with a designer some art samples that have come in from an illustrator for a new picture book (a fun break!). By the end of the day, with a few butterflies fluttering in my stomach, the designer and I place print-outs of the full 224-page craft book on the senior commissioning editor’s desk, ready for her check and the sign-off of the Head of Children’s before this goes into production. Fingers crossed they like it!
Finally, a few final emails, and I’m off for the day, feeling good about a productive one and looking forward to the proofs and advances and manuscripts and art samples we might see tomorrow…
Irish Pub Cooking: Comfort Food as Medicine
What does “comfort food” mean to you, and what is its role in healing? Sometimes when we’re sick or broken (per below, we literally mean “broken”!) food can act as medicine, providing vitamins and nutrients to help our bodies get well. Sometimes, it’s about mental health: food makes us feel better! Our intrepid roving reporter Sarah Purvis recently learned that sometimes, when you fail to respond to a medical emergency the first time around, you get a second chance through food…Read on for her story and a wonderful recipe!
I have, what a nurse called, a ‘tender disposition’ and this was on display just recently when, on the last of his hang gliding lessons, my husband unfortunately landed badly and broke his arm. There was no blood gushing from a deep wound, there were no bones protruding from his right limb, but for some reason my mind went into overdrive mode recreating a scene from a zombie movie, and within seconds of reaching my husband’s side I passed out. This is embarrassing for me to admit. My poor husband really could have done with some support – and I failed to deliver. I regained my composure quickly and was able to hand over my broken husband to the amazing staff in the ER to literally mend.
Fast forward a week and the patient is doing very well. He has most of the movement back in his arm already thanks to the numerous exercises he was given to do to prevent his arm seizing up. And of course, to encourage healthy bone growth and general well-being, we’ve boosted areas of our diet to include more foods that contain iron, calcium, and vitamins. For dinners, this often means steak with oven roasted potato wedges, tuna with roasted vegetable couscous, pork stir fry with black beans and pak choi and, probably the best, Fisherman’s Pie. Not only is it very easy to make, it’s also packed with a heap of nutrition. I added some chunks of salmon filet, a boiled egg and some frozen peas for a little variety. The husband with a broken arm is also optional – you don’t necessarily need one of these in order to make this dish!
Serves 6. Ingredients:
900g/2 lb white fish filets, skinned
150 ml/5 fl oz dry white wine
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, tarragon or dill
175g/6 oz small mushrooms, sliced
70g/ 2½ oz butter, plus extra for greasing and for the mashed potato
175g/6 oz cooked peeled prawns / shrimp
40g/1½ oz plain flour
125 ml/4 fl oz double cream
900g/2 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into even-sized chunks
salt and pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Grease a 1.7-litre/3-pint baking dish with butter.
2. Fold the fish fillets in half and place in the dish. Season well with salt and pepper, pour over the wine and scatter over the herbs.
3. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes until the fish starts to flake. Strain off the liquid and reserve for the sauce. Increase the oven temperature to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7.
4. Sauté the mushrooms in a frying pan with 15g/½ oz of the butter and spoon over the fish. Scatter over the prawns.
5. Heat the remaining butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour. Cook for a few minutes without browning, remove from the heat, then add the reserved cooking liquid gradually, stirring well between each addition.
6. Return to the heat and gently bring to the boil, still stirring to ensure a smooth sauce. Add the cream and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour over the fish in the dish and smooth over the surface.
7. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling salted water for 15-20 minutes. Drain well and mash with a potato masher until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add the remaining butter, stirring until melted.
9. Pile or pipe the mash onto the fish and sauce and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
Margaret Wise Brown, Children’s Book Publishing, and a “Child’s Mind”
She was engaged to a Rockefeller, her social circle included famous actors and socialites, and she lived so extravagantly that she thought nothing of spending an entire paycheck on a party or purse. If she were a modern-day star like Rihanna or Lindsay Lohan, we wouldn’t be surprised by this story: we’ve heard it before. But what if I told you this colorful character was Margaret Wise Brown, author of such famous children’s books as Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny?
Margaret Wise Brown did indeed live a wild and interesting life, prompting last week’s question from a great Slate article: Do childish people write better children’s books? Drawing on Brown’s rich life history and extensive back catalog, we’d certainly say yes in her case. Brown’s approach to writing children’s books was innovative in itself and she actually prided herself on her ability to see life from a child’s perspective – especially given that she didn’t have children herself.
How did she do it? First, Brown taught at the legendary Bank Street Elementary School in New York, where she was able to interact with children’s learning processes and where she began to develop the idea that children wanted to hear stories about characters like themselves, not just fairytales and fables. She began to develop a feel for a child’s creative mind, and she used this to fuel her writing.
Most importantly, Brown believed that the key to successful children's writing was to make it physically accessible to children in the first place. Throughout her career and her wild, fantastic life, she fought to make sure books were available to children through any means possible. She tried to get her publishers at the time to place stories on the backs of cereal boxes, and she supported the idea of creating affordable “value” products that anyone could find in any store.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Brown’s death. As a book publisher founded on the idea that everyone should have access to affordable, entertaining, useful books, Parragon was especially pleased to have the opportunity to publish some of Brown’s back catalog (starting with Count to Ten With a Mouse and Goodnight Little One, out now). We’re grateful for Brown’s childlike vision, and the story of her life only makes her all the more fascinating!
Welcome to Little Learners!
Sharing books with your little one is such an important and enjoyable experience for both children and parents. At Parragon, we wanted to support this bonding experience with a view to the child’s mind. How will a baby interact with each book in a series, and how do we make sure that parents understand a child’s learning process through a book? From this question, Little Learners (Little Me, in Australia) was born, bringing to life a series of colourful and contemporary characters for kids and parents to play along with.
Each book in the series focuses on a different level of child development during children’s most crucial learning stages, encouraging education and interactive play between parent and baby—anytime, anywhere. The books take on a variety of fun formats including snuggly cloth books, stroller books, “slide and see” play, bath books, and finger puppets; topics range from colors and numbers to animals, food, and sharing, taking every moment as an opportunity to learn along with beautifully illustrated characters.
Developed in conjunction with educational consultants, Little Learners / Little Me also aims to make key learning concepts easy for parents. With icons on each book indicating its learning functions – including interactive play, hand-eye coordination, language development, first words, knowledge about the world, listening skills, and sense of touch – parents can rest easy knowing that their babies are engaging with the world around them in a meaningful way.
The Little Learners range has been extensively tested by focus groups of real mothers, all of whom loved the unique, playful nature of the books. Said one mother: “Little Learners have depth to them, they are perfect for babies but have things for them to grow into as well, like concepts around texture and size.”
We're really excited to bring Little Learners / Little Me to families across the world and books into the lives of babies everywhere!
Getting Valentine’s Day Right with the Cupcake
Cupcakes exist for many reasons. They are delicious, they are portable, they are cost-efficient and easy to make, and most importantly, they solve very important problems like “what should I give my loved one on Valentine’s Day”? Bake along with Parragon’s freelance baker / writer extraordinaire, Sarah Purvis, as she helps to rescue your Love Holiday.
Valentine’s Heart Cupcakes (From The Cupcake)
Makes 6
Ingredients
85g/3oz butter, softened, or soft margarine
85g/3oz caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
70g/2 ½ oz plain flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
6 sugar flowers, to decorate
Marzipan Hearts
35g/1 ¼ oz marzipan
red food colouring
icing sugar, for dusting
Frosting
55g/2 oz unsalted butter, softened
115g/4oz icing sugar
25g/1 oz plain chocolate, melted
Make the marzipan hearts first – you need to allow a good few hours for them to dry. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any marzipan, but fondant or gum paste work just as well!
Knead the marzipan (or fondant) until pliable, then add a little red food colouring and knead until mixed. Be careful – red colouring can stain quite badly, so wash your hands frequently or wear gloves if you’re concerned about looking like the chief suspect in a murder mystery. Roll out the marzipan to a thickness of 5mm / ¼ inch on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar.
Using a small heart cutter, cut out 6 hearts. Place on a sheet of greaseproof paper dusted with icing sugar and leave to dry for 3-4 hours, or overnight.
And now for the cupcakes! Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Put 6 paper cases in a muffin tray. Place the butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Mmmm, the smell of the vanilla as this mixes together is delicious!
Gently beat in the eggs. (“Gently” is the key here to avoid curdling - which almost happened to me!) Sift in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and using a metal spoon, fold into the mixture: Chocolate Heaven Part 1! Spoon the mixture into the (delightful heart-themed!) paper cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and firm to the touch.
Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool. But, hold your horses – avoid the temptation of peeling back even the tiniest of corners – the best bit is still to come!
Put the butter in a large bowl and beat until fluffy. Sift in the icing sugar and beat together until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and beat together until well mixed. We like to refer to this stage as Chocolate Heaven Part 2. Spread all of the frosting you’ve not yet “just tasted” on top of each cupcake. As you will see from the final images, I decorated mine with three hearts, but now is the time for the sugar flowers if you have them. Just pop ‘em on the top with the marzipan hearts.
You have to seriously love someone to part with even just one of these light, airy, moreish, yummy scrummy cupcakes. Thank goodness the recipe makes 6! Happy Valentine’s Day.
Parragon Announces Marvel Comics License!
Parragon’s action-packed 2012 is set to kick off with a brand new license from Marvel Comics! We’re very pleased to be releasing over 100 Marvel titles this year across North America, Latin America, Germany, and the U.K.
The first releases will debut in April and include The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Secrets and Marvel Super Heroes: Super Hero Secrets. Featuring super hero profiles, cool codes, daring deeds, and top secret stuff, these fun activity books make the ideal afternoon playmate for kids. Future titles in the Marvel range from Parragon will include a wide array of colouring and activity books.
For more information on the Marvel license, check out this article in Publisher’s Weekly!
Microfinance, Travel, & Publishing: Connecting the Dots
In his remarkable book “Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries”, Peter Sims walks the reader through a number of the thought processes that led to some of business’s brightest ideas, from the early days of Hewlett-Packard to the more recent success of Pixar. As an example of how innovation can come from a series of smaller thoughts and actions, Sims profiles Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, known as the person who is largely responsible for launching the microfinance industry.
As an economics professor, Yunus felt far removed from the history and theory that he taught, and he began to spend more time in poor areas of India. There, he found a woman who earned just two cents a day and for whom twenty-two cents would mean the difference between debt and self-suffiency. He then created a program that would allow “lenders” to give small amounts of money to impoverished small businesses, allowing him to contribute from a “worm’s-eye view” to the problems he’d been studying from a distance.
What does this have to do with publishing? It’s about perspective. First, as businesses with healthy incomes, we have the opportunity to help in similar ways. For a number of years, Parragon has contributed donations to the UK organization Five Talents, a microlender that “addresses the needs of poor populations otherwise underserved by the commercial microcredit industry.” They work not only to provide money to small businesses in need, but to provide those businesses and individuals with marketing and entrepreneurial training to help them succeed. (For more on Five Talents’ distinctive approach, you can check out their website here.)
For the past couple of years, Parragon wanted to do more than just contribute: We wanted (like Professor Yunus) to see the communities we’d been helping finance, and we began to organize trips for interested employees to visit communities in need in countries like India, Tanzania, and Latin America. Insight and adventure followed. Last year’s trip to Tanzania, for example, found a group of Parragons at the offices of the Mama Bahati Foundation in central Iringa, where they gained insight into the daily lives of loan beneficiaries, sat in on repayment meetings, and enjoyed a chance to visit craft markets to see Tanzanian small businesses at work and hear about their owners’ plans for the future.
Parragon’s visits to these places do more than help us to understand the impact that our donations can have and give us a chance to travel. Ideas come from everywhere, and as a company that creates international content for all manner of people, it’s our job to keep our eyes open to possibilities. This is the other key learning from our relationship with Five Talents. Immersion – in other cultures, in local arts and crafts, and in the ideas of others – is one of the best ways to come up with practical solutions to problems. For Professor Yunus, this led to to a modern incarnation of microfinance. For Parragon, it’s been an opportunity for professional and personal development, both of which lead us down the path towards new ideas.
[Special thanks to Parragon’s own Wendy Hedges for keeping a diary of the Tanzanian trip for us all to enjoy.]
“Children’s Publishing Goes Digital”: Key Takeaways From Digital Book World
[Above: a still from one of our children's apps, Discovery Kids Sharks.]
“Content” was the big word at Digital Book World’s annual conference this year. “I’m not an author, I’m a content provider”, said Nancy O’Connor as she took the stage during Barnes and Noble’s Nook Kids presentation. She was half-joking, but the message was clear: the definition of a “book” is much, much broader than it used to be. When it comes to children’s books, that landscape is looking different by the day. “Children’s Publishing Goes Digital” was an all-day session designed to engage publishers, developers, researchers, and other “content providers” in conversation about what it will look like going forward. I spent the day there earlier this week getting the lowdown, and it is safe to say that publishing will see a lot of exciting activity in 2012. With this in mind, I wanted to share some highlights from the children’s publishing portion of Digital Book World and try my hand at some industry predictions for the year to come.
1. When we talk about “content”, we are talking about two things: quality and distribution.
One of the few points echoed with consistency across the whole of the conference was that what stands at the heart of any sales and marketing effort is strong content. A book’s quality is what will ultimately sell it and make people read it. Also, its “content” is about much more than just what fills its pages in print. Now, we can use vibrant illustrations and great characters to our full advantage and bring them to life in transmedia (multi-platform) storytelling formats. Video, web-based content, and interactive apps are all ways to continue the story “off the page” and truly bring it to life in a way that encourages young readers.
2. Children’s publishing formats are evolving, but children’s basic learning and development needs remain at the core of our own product development.
"Sesame Street is a 43-year research experiment," said Sesame Workshop’s Jennifer Perry in her presentation on how to teach pre-schoolers using digital technology. It is easy to look to Sesame Street and other trusted children’s brands like Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon, and Disney for cues on creating digital content that remains true to the core of children’s education. Perry pointed to a number of “best practices” that research has showin improve reading comprehension for kids. Questions that publishers and developers should ask include, “Does the child understand the calls to action?” and “What features increase understanding?”
3. Apps are not a shiny new toy; they are a tool to be used wisely.
There are quite a few articles (see this great recap from Digital Book World) going around about the wane of interest in apps by publishers. There is only one major reason for this, and that is of course that apps are not guaranteed money-makers. It is difficult – and sometimes expensive – to build a good app and even hard to get it noticed, and publishers are learning that apps should be part of a broader marketing strategy rather than a standalone attempt to capture sales.
Ultimately, this is great news for consumers! It means that more than ever, developers need to make sure that their apps represent their very best content with the best functionality available.
4. Rather than being a “threat” to print books, the publishing industry needs to see digital as an incredible opportunity to create young readers through technology.
Now more than ever, publishers have the opportunity to reach kids through nontraditional formats and encourage them to start reading at an early age. Kids have always and will always love the newest technology, both because they want the newest and coolest toys and because their curious minds are fascinated by how technology works. It is our job as content providers to deliver them engaging and interactive digital books and apps that will make them excited about becoming readers. This is a reward that will extend back to print books and beyond.