Publishers Bring Online Virtual Worlds to the Printed Page
Licensed children’s books are typically tied to current films and popular television shows. But as tweens and teens spend increasing amounts of time in the digital world, children’s publishers are looking toward online and mobile properties as a way to entice readers to the print medium. In particular, they are developing licensed books inspired by virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Moshi Monsters, and Poptropica, hoping that these brands, with their large and loyal fan bases, spur tweens and teens to try some real-world reading. more...
05/17/2012 @ 03:00PM
Candlewick plans to expand its MoshiMoshiKawaii publishing program, launched in 2011 with three search-and-find titles, with the addition of two smaller-format activity/search books in August of this year.
04/20/2012 @ 07:00PM
Television shows, from Columbo to Criminal Minds, have long inspired book series in the mystery genre. Creating licensed novels based on a detective show—attracting TV fans and satisfying the show’s producers, while not alienating avid mystery readers—can be difficult. Yet the track record of such publishing programs is good, with several achieving bestseller status and some outliving the show on which they’re based.
04/14/2012 @ 12:00PM
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, longtime U.S. publisher of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has secured the U.S. rights to release tie-in books for the films The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.
04/06/2012 @ 10:00AM
Sesame Workshop has licensed Ape Entertainment and its Kidzoic imprint to produce original print and digital comic books for young readers featuring the Sesame Street characters.
03/29/2012 @ 03:00PM
Bookstores are among the retail chains helping consumers whet their appetite for licensed merchandise based on The Hunger Games. The movie’s $152.2 million opening-weekend box office take was the third largest for any film and the largest ever for a non-sequel.
03/23/2012 @ 07:00PM
Companies weigh global strategies
and local preferences
and local preferences
The adage “think global, act local” is an increasingly apt description for the international publishing strategies of Hollywood film studios, television producers, and digital brand owners when it comes to licensing their content.
03/22/2012 @ 01:00PM
HIT Entertainment has signed Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing as its first licensee in the U.S. and Canada for the CG-animated television series Mike the Knight.
03/19/2012 @ 10:00AM
Random House Children’s Books will become the primary publisher for Nickelodeon, taking over all trade publishing formats from longtime licensee Simon & Schuster as of January 1, 2013.
02/24/2012 @ 07:00PM
Licensed products typically are front and center at the annual New York Toy Fair, with toys and games based on movies, TV shows, and classic characters driving a significant portion of sales in that industry. Many of the publishers exhibiting at the show highlight their licensed titles as well.
02/02/2012 @ 03:00PM
One of the strongest current licenses for Modern Publishing—which was acquired by Kappa Books last week—is the three-decade-old art brand, Lisa Frank.
The Roundup for Licensing
Publishing news from across the Web
The Millions tackles this question in a piece called "On Getting Paid: Literary Magazines and Remuneration."
Mulholland Books has announced that it will be publishing a swath of titles by celebrated pulp novelist Jim Thompson as e-books.
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Our final piece in Publishers Weekly's Focus on Audio 2012 is a Q&A with comedian, actor, director, and writer Michael Showalter -- narrator of the audio edition of his memoir Mr. Funny Pants and...
Top Bestsellers
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| Killing Lincoln (unabr.) | Audio Nonfiction |
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| Hunger Games | Children's Series & Tie-ins |
| Blue Exorcist, Volume 3 | Graphic Novels |
| Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel | Hardcover Fiction |
| Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson | Hardcover Nonfiction |
| The Lucky One | Mass Market Paper |
| Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy | Trade Paper |
