A number of publishers are attempting to create a similar impression in producing personalised text-based products. For example in 2011 Penguin launched a picture book app titled Me Books for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The premise was to take a number of favoured classic children’s stories from their Ladybird Classic range and then digitise them with pictures, text and audio provided. Parents can then personalise the reading experience by recording their own voice onto the application using their device’s microphone. Penguin’s Children’s Books publishing director Eric Huang maintains that the app is ‘focused back on the story and bedtime reading’ (Huang in Horn, 2011) as parents become the narrators.
Another successful case study of personalised publishing is Sourcebooks’ Put Me in the Story range which launched in November 2012. Sourcebooks publisher Dominique Raccah attributes Put Me in the Story to the company’s sales rise of more than 60% between 2013 and 2014 (Kirch, 2014). They have also published an app entitled Put Me in the Story that allows a parent or guardian or a child to record their individual narration of a story. They however take personalisation further in allowing a child’s name to be recorded and imprinted into the story, effectively meaning that a child can become a character in the story itself (Sourcebooks, 2014).
It isn’t just in digital formats that personalisation is possible. Sourcebooks’ Put Me in the Story range also publishes a number of physical printed copies such as I Love You So... by Marianne Richmond (2014). Richmond’s story is designed so that relatives can personalise a story for their child to include the child’s name, a personal message of dedication and even a photograph of the child (Richmond, 2014). The process of personalisation for the buyer is a quick and simple one. The buyer must go to the title’s homepage on Sourcebooks’ website and fill in a short digital form at the online checkout and Sourcebooks will produce and send them the finished personalised product.
Gareth Ward predicted in 1998 that by 2010 publishers would be able to produce publications such as magazines that would be personalised specifically for each of their readers (Ward, p. 137). This offers a sense of individuality as the publications cover ‘items that are of particular interest to one individual’ (Ward, p. 137). It certainly appears as though this innovative genre is gaining more success with Sourcebooks having sold more than 40,000 copies of their most successful personalised title (Kirch, 2014) and with revenues in January 2014 for Put Me in the Story being 100% above Sourcebooks’ projections (Kirch, 2014).
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Bibliography
Anon. (2014) Put Me In The Story — Personalized Children’s Book App for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. [online] Available at: <http://www.putmeinthestory.com/content/apps/put-me-in-the-story-free-ipad-app.html> [Accessed 8th October 2014].
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Horn, C. (2011). Penguin to offer personalised kids books with new app, The Bookseller [online]. <http://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-offer-personalised-kids-books-new-app>. [Accessed 8th October 2014].
Kirch, C. (2014). Put Me in the Story Lifts Sourcebooks Sales. Publishers Weekly [online]. Available at: <http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/61250-put-me-in-the-story-lifts-sourcebooks-sales.html> [Accessed 8th October 2014].
Richmond, M (2014). I Love You So... Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Ward, G. (1998). Publishing in the Digital Age. London: The Bowerdean Publishing Group.