Buzz Report: Book Expo America
By Tina Benitez & Karyn M. Peterson -- Playthings, 6/5/2007 6:23:00 AM
NEW YORK—A meet-and-greet with your favorite author, some free books and literary swag or sealing a business deal—whatever the goals for this year’s Book Expo America (BEA), which took place this past weekend at New York’s Jacob Javits Center, moseying down most aisles was not an easy task.
It was another successful year indeed for BEA, which pulled in an estimated 30,000 or so attendees (including retailers, librarians and licensing executives) and close to 2000 exhibitors from the worlds of publishing, toys and other book-related products. As more toy stores add books and book stores add toys to their selections, BEA served as the perfect opportunity for marketers of each to showcase products that could cross over to both markets.
Silver Dolphin, San Francisco, had most of its books-plus collection on display, including the newest titles debuting in 2007 as well as complete prototypes of titles launching in spring 2008. Lynn Brennan, imprint manager for the publisher, told Playthings that the company significantly expanded its retail presence in the toy sector last year, and hopes to continue to do so through 2008 and beyond.
Some of Silver Dolphin’s new activity book sets include pop-up play areas that unfold from the back of each book and come packaged with additional figures, such as the new Pirate Ship Pop-up Book. It’s a concept that has been exciting toy retailers, the company says. By spring 2008, a Roman Gladiator pop-up will also be available. New kits in the Model Masters line were also on display and ready to ship this summer, including Dragons. Fairies and Horses, as well as a Planet Earth globe and book, will debut next spring. The company is also pushing its Amazing Baby line of mini board books for younger readers at both book and toy retail outlets.
Brennan said that the company expanded into toy retail venues largely with the help of toy rep groups, which it began employing about eight months ago; retailer feedback has confirmed that there is a lot of play value in the books the publisher offers.
“I wrote an order at 9 a.m., so it’s not too bad,” Brennan told Playthings on Friday, the show’s opening day. “I write more orders at Toy Fair, but the show is still strong at BEA. At Toy Fair you have the toy stores, museums, aquariums and other specialty. Sometimes it’s a lot of the same customers at BEA, but BEA still [totals] 25 percent of the orders we get at Toy Fair.”
For Oakland, Calif.-based Merrymakers, the approach from the get-go is to develop plush for popular children’s books that can be cross-merchandised in both toy and book stores, according to the company’s Clair Frederick. One upcoming plush set is Owen and Mzee, based on the touching book series of real-life tortoise and baby hippo friends from Scholastic. Frederick hopes a more edgy item, Bad Kitty, can cross over from her usual clientele of toy and book stores to Hot Topic-style teen shops. “We’re taking lots of orders. It’s great,” she said. “We have mostly book stores stopping in, but more toy stores are also carrying books now.”
Judith Haut, vice president of communications for Random House, New York, also said that they’ve been getting great response to its properties at this year’s show, especially for The Golden Compass, which will hit theaters this December with plenty of product and publishing in tow from master toy licensee Corgi/Master Replicas, among others.
“New Line is doing a great job promoting Golden Compass,” she says. “We’re also working closely with accounts to put together promotions leading up to the Golden Compass film.” Haut said efforts to promote all the books in the Philip Pullman series will be ongoing both before and after the release of the film, in the hopes of building an even bigger audience for the film sequels.
In the manga world, Los Angeles-based TokyoPop also had a strong presence at BEA this year, and was on hand primarily to promote its manga that ties directly into the literary world, including titles based on Erin Hunter’s Warriors young adult novels and a new series, Avalon High, featuring completely original stories but using the settings and characters from Meg Cabot’s popular young adult novels.
Marco Pavia, director of marketing, said the company was hoping to expand its presence in comic book shops and among the industry overall, and noted that HarperCollins was partnering with TokyoPop specifically to promote those titles at the show.
TokyoPop is also updating its Web site within a few weeks to make it more fan-friendly; the relaunched site will include a wealth of user-generated content that won’t be limited to the TokyoPop world, Pavia said. Blogs, artwork and other fan-generated content—even content that includes or mentions characters from company competitors such as Dark Horse and Marvel—will be allowed on the site without censorship, Pavia said. The company hopes that this will help foster a worldwide manga fan community.
TokyoPop is also launching new Manga Creator software, developed by Planetwide Games, through which kids will be able to develop their own manga with characters and storylines. “It will be YouTube meets iTunes for the manga generation,” said Pavia.
And although he might still have to explain the origin and nature of the manga category to a few retailers now and then, it’s definitely now on the radar, Pavia noted—since his 72-year-old mother, for example, already knows most of the publisher’s titles, that must mean that manga/anime has pretty much arrived, he told Playthings.
Things were also busy for Klutz at this year’s show, as the Palo Alto, Calif.-based activity books manufacturer celebrated the 30th anniversary of its Juggling for the Complete Klutz book. Sheryl Brunell, executive director of sales for Klutz, told Playthings that the BEA show is usually a lighter show than Toy Fair, and there’s usually a warmer reception to the company as more book sellers are looking for something different from Klutz. “Everything is shifting in the industry,” she says. “Everyone is trying to be in everything and be homogenous. Book stores are trying to be toy stores and toy stores are trying to be book stores.”
Next year, BEA moves from New York City to the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 29 through June 1.
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