Kids Today
The technicalities
Despite the profitable results that multi-media initiatives have earned in the children's' publishing market, not all professionals agree that high-tech is always better than traditional print.
"The liveliest CD-ROM story 'book' doesn't have the cuddle factor of a picture book shared at bedtime," says Harold Underdown, editor at ipicturebooks (www.ipicturebooks.com). "On-demand publishing, in which single titles of books are printed when needed, also seems to me to have a natural niche. Academic and specialty publishers can use it to sell copies of their books in bookstores that can't otherwise carry them. This technology could also enable publishers to keep a novel or black-and-white nonfiction title technically 'in print' indefinitely, even if not widely available."