Chronicle Celebrates a Coloring Book with Crossover Appeal
By Bridget Kinsella, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 1/3/2008
This month Chronicle Books is publishing Doodle All Year: Over 365 Pages of Fun!, its fourth title in a series of interactive coloring books by Taro Gomi. The three other titles—Scribbles, Doodles and Squiggles—have sold over 223,000 copies, which, priced at $18.95, make the series one of the publisher’s most profitable.
“It’s the kind of book that works in all channels—specialty trade and gift markets—that’s really where Chronicle shines,” said Bill Boedeker, publishing director of Chronicle’s children’s division. Because Doodle All Year, which has a 35,000-copy first printing, is somewhat smaller in trim size than the three previous volumes, Chronicle lowered the price point to $16.95. “We’re following the Japanese format,” said Boedeker.
Pete Bohan, Chronicle’s marketing manager for the series, said sales have been almost evenly divided between trade and specialty stores, at 50 and 41 percent respectively. “One thing to note is that our specialty sales for [any] given title are usually in the 28 percent range, so the Taro Gomi books have been doing extraordinarily well for the channel,” Bohan said.
To promote the newest book, Chronicle is sponsoring a customer creativity contest that runs from November to May, and invites consumers to finish a Gomi drawing. “It’s a shell of a drawing that you finish yourself,” Bohan explained. He said that Chronicle’s trade sales director had worked with the special markets sales director to come up with more than 400 bookstores, libraries and specialty stores to send contest kits. Chronicle plans to pick the top 10 winners and then Gomi, who lives in Japan, will choose five grand prize winners via Chronicle’s Web site. Grand prize winners will receive a deluxe set of art supplies, a print from the book signed by Gomi, and the four Gomi titles.
Becky Bilby at the Orange City Public Library in Orange City, Iowa, said her patrons have responded so strongly to the contest that the library has gone through a couple of tablets of doodle entries and has requested more. “We have also posted it on our teen blog to encourage teens to participate as well,” she told Bookshelf.
In Boedeker’s view, Gomi’s personality appeals to children of all ages. After meeting Gomi at last year’s Bologna Book Fair, Boedeker judged him to be a “big kid.” He thinks the contest will bring new readers to Gomi’s work and will allow the Japanese artist to mingle, in a way, with his new and old fans.
