NorthWord Press, an imprint of Minnetonka, Minn.-based Creative Publishing International, has been steadily adding resources to its children's line to become, in the words of CPI director of marketing and public relations Jeff Swanson, "a national player in children's publishing."
Its most recent move was the April appointment of Aimee Jackson, who was named to fill the newly created position of executive editor of the Books for Young Readers division. And Jackson, who had spent five years as a children's editor at Flagstaff, Ariz.—based Rising Moon, didn't waste any time in making her mark at NorthWord; her first acquisition was a manuscript from veteran author Eve Bunting, due in spring 2003.
For the last several years, children's books had been a back-burner success story for NorthWord. The company has sold more than 200,000 of its Children of the Earth picture books by Schim Schimmel and has had success with a series of Fun with Nature field guides for kids, yet until December 1999, when Heidi Kanter was designated as the director of sales for NorthWord's line of books for young readers, the publisher had not given much attention to the school and library markets.
"Virtually none of the school library wholesalers had accounts with us," Kanter recalled. "We'd had almost no exposure of our backlist to the institutional market. We were essentially starting from square one." With Kanter's efforts, the institutional market now accounts for about 39% of the children's division's $1 million in revenues, and Swanson would like to see that figure reach 70%.
Kanter was successful in getting many of NorthWord's children's titles accepted in the Accelerated Reading Program right out of the block.
Jackson will be seeking to expand NorthWord's visibility in the trade area. "My goal is to continue with the kinds of books that have been strong for us in the past—quality, nature-oriented nonfiction—and to grow and expand in that direction while also moving more into traditional children's trade picture books. Ideally, everything we do will be a nice fit for both the trade and the institutional markets." The division published 10 books in 2000 and plans to release 17 titles this year and 15 to 17 in 2002.
NorthWord has hired Tracey Daniels, a publicist with a background in children's books, revamped its publication schedule and last fall issued its first stand-alone Books for Young Readers catalogue.
