Children’s Book Publishers Think ‘Outside the Book’
This has inspired some companies to use text messaging campaigns to children, but Mancuso thinks it’s more for branding purposes than for more rings of the cash register. “I just don’t see kids getting an IM [instant message] and then immediately running to the bookstore,” he says.
Dawn Van Zant, owner of Point Roberts, Wash.-based Wild Heart Ranch Publishing, says MP3 and audio formats are turning free samples of content into sales. “People hear a sample of a book and want to buy it,” she says. “Or even being listed by Google [Book Search] works well—we have uploaded through Google and get traffic back through that. If a potential buyer can get a couple pages, that could entice them. We even did audio [in Chinese] for a Chinese book … and found it effective.”