November - December 2003

EVENTS of INTEREST
by Connie C. Epstein

The Children's Book Council hosted its 2003 annual meeting and chair's program on September 25 in the auditorium of the New York City Bar Association Building. Attended by approximately 250 publishing members, the morning began with a continental breakfast followed by business reports from the board on the finances and activities of the fiscal year ending June 30. One new initiative described by Chair Mark Vineis of Mondo Publishing was the launch of CBC's subscription service Awards and Prizes Online, covering nearly 300 awards and 6000 award-winning books. Another important project updated by Alan Smagler of Simon and Schuster was the continuation of the annual Industry Sales Survey, offering sales analysis on nine categories of children's books. Interestingly, Smagler noted among various other current trends, the ages of 14 to 17 now make up the group showing strongest market growth.

Next came the chair's program presenting two experts in marketing to children from other businesses to explain their strategies and how they might be adapted to the book market. The speakers were Suzanne Harper, editor-in-chief of the magazine Disney Adventures, and Julie Halpin, chief executive officer of the Gepetto Group, a full-service agency in the children's and young-adult market. Harper's remarks focused on the tween market, children from 8 to 12, who still love storytelling but are drawn to more interactive media such as websites and video games. Her advice to book publishers was to go where the tweens are (malls, sports events, the Internet) and to make them feel the book is "just for them" (a special area in the bookstore, website pages that avoid "little kid" imagery or reviews of picture books).

Acknowledging that book publishers don't have a "Nike budget," Halpin suggested that some of the ideas of her big corporate clients could still be useful to them. For example, they should keep in mind that the role of the parent changes with the age of the child: that is, the parent gets less involved with a purchase decision as the child grows up. (Her overall estimate of the amount of discretionary money children have to spend was 35.6 billion dollars in 2000.) The agency's list of their favorite things to buy was headed by food and beverage, with books ranked down around number seven, which Halpin still considered good news. But, above all, she stressed the importance of branding when marketing to children, making a brand of the author, a character, or a theme as in a series.

Clearly appreciative of the specific research presented by the speakers, members left thoughtfully discussing in
what ways it could be helpful to the book market.