Eric Huang, development director of Made in Me, a digital publisher specializing in children’s content, is one of the speakers at the Global Kids Connect Conference set for December 2 in New York City, PW, which is producing the show along with the Bologna Children's Book Fair, talked with Huang about some of the trends he sees in the children's market.
Q: What are the most successful strategies that you have found for marketing children’s books, and children’s entertainment media in general, on a global scale?
The marketing strategy for Me Books is about partnering with big brands with a lot of consumer traffic. We give away free digital books via brand partners like McDonald's and Save the Children. In order to redeem the free digital books, consumers have to download our Me Books app and give us their email details. We can then convert them into paying customers; 1 in 5 people who download the free Me Books app will buy a digital book.
Q: What kinds of new technologies and innovations are involved, or should be involved, when an e-book is distributed through an app? For example, should e-books become more enhanced and interactive, with multimedia options, in order to be more successfully marketed globally?
We've found the opposite to be true. Digital books that have too much interactivity distract from the reading experience. Part of the reason why Me Books has worked is that it taps into existing consumer behaviors of families reading bedtime stories together. Playing a competitive game and reading before going to bed are different states of mind. Combining these two behaviors into one activity would be difficult - and ultimately unsatisfying, I think.
Q: What are some strategies that Made in Me, and other kids’ tech companies, are using that children’s publishers could use to more successfully market their products?
Kids’ publishers are definitely becoming more innovative. The big thing we've learned from Made in Me is to be flexible. We are successful almost despite our best efforts. Our biggest wins have come from accidents that were never part of our strategic plans. We lucked out because we aren't precious - and we've been flexible, quick to change direction when an unexpected opportunity arose.
Q: What are some specific innovations you’d like to see in children’s book publishing? (Enhanced e-books, games, etc)
I'd like our industry to participate completely in the larger media landscape. The biggest media brands today come from books: Walking Dead, Avengers, Hunger Games, James Bond ... We could be more adept at remaining financially and creatively involved when our stories leave the pages of books onto TV screens, silver screens, touch screens.
I'd also like to see the book section of the various app stores become truly successful, full of money-making titles that spawn physical product and TV series - just like our physical books do. It's not happened yet.
Huang will moderate a session at GKC called “Digital/Tech Innovation in Children’s Publishing Globally.”
Other speakers include Alloy Entertainment’s Annie Stone, Noisy Crows’ Nancy Wilson, Ginger Clark from the Curtis Brown Literary Agency, and literary historian Leonard Marcus. Among the topics to be discussed are global markets and trends, issues around COPPA, and best practices for retail, marketing and social media on an international scale.
The one-track GKC conference takes place at the historic Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in New York's Chelsea neighborhood.
