Presentations

Available presentations and audio recordings are posted here with generous permission from our speakers. You can also click on the following panel titles to hear our lively discussions:

Rethinking Intellectual Property: Publishers creating, controlling, and licensing IP
Panelists: Corinne Helman, Devereux Chatillon, Eric Huang, Jon Yaged, Swanna MacNair

Random Buzzers- Driving Word of Mouth with a YA Audience
Panelists: Linda Leonard, Sonia Nash Gupta

We’re pleased to offer you audio recordings of the following presentations (Sorry, no slides available!):

Driving Children’s Book Discovery in the Digital Age, Presented by Peter Hildick-Smith of Codex Group

Reaching Kids & Families in Today’s Market, Presented by Kashif Zafar and Matt Warner of Nook

Sizing Up the Kid’s Book Market

Presented by Carl Kulo, Bowker Market Research, and Kristen McLean, Bookigee (@BKGKristen)

Bowker tracks the children’s book consumer market through their ongoing biannual study, Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer in the Digital Age. This survey looks at trends in book discovery, consumption, and buying behaviors among parents, teachers, and kids of all ages. In this presentation, Bowker Market Research reveals the latest data from the study, with special attention paid this year to price sensitivity and value perception across devices and channels, as well as to the adult crossover market for YA titles.

Listen to Carl and Kristen’s presentation.

Storia: Scholastic’s eReading Platform

Deborah Forte, President, Scholastic Media (@Scholastic)

Scholastic introduces Storia®, its new, free teacher-recommended reading app for kids. Deborah Forte discusses the foundation of the platform and shares the company’s plans for what’s coming in the new year. In the context of Storia, she discusses the importance of reimagining the value proposition and value perception of children’s ebooks – and the objective of connecting children not just with any book – but the right book – to cultivate the next generation of readers.

Listen to Deborah Forte’s presentation.

You can learn more about Storia on the Scholastic site, and see Deborah Forte’s recent interview with Good E-Reader, conducted at Digital Book World Conference + Expo.

Publisher as Producer: The changing role of the children’s book publisher

Eric Huang, Director, New Business & IP Acquisitions, Penguin (@DinoBoy89)

Eric Huang is helping to change how Penguin finds and develops new children’s content. He’s scouting for digitally savvy authors at non-publishing events, creating cross-media stories with book, app, and animation components, and constantly looking for new ways to connect with global TV and film partners, the web, and other brand extension opportunities. He shares what he sees as the critical role of the publisher in the new media age – to develop the story for any/all formats, publish the “book”, and act as broker to market story to TV/film.

Listen to Eric Huang’s presentation.

Hear more from Eric about Penguin’s digital transition in this video interview with MIPBlog and in these related interviews at DigitalBookWorld.com and the Literary Platform.

Also check out this YouTube trailer for Whale Trail.

Rethinking Intellectual Property: Publishers creating, controlling, and licensing IP

With presentations by Swanna MacNair, Founder, Creative Conduit (@SwannaMac) and Jonathan Yaged, President, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group (@JYaged)

At last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Lee Brackstone, editorial director of Faber and Faber, said, “The way we’re acquiring is changing. We’re not necessarily starting with books now; we are copyrighting ideas and turning them into books down the line.”

Children’s publishers today are increasingly branching into cross-media and franchise development. They are creating new licensing divisions to control global rights and building consumer products teams to see variety of opportunities through to fruition. They are owning and controlling intellectual property in entirely new ways for the publishing business – evolving to look more like Hollywood studios. This panel discusses the high return on children’s brands and how publishers are working with authors and traditional partners in new ways.

Listen to the presentations and panel discussion.

See Swanna MacNair’s presentation about her transmedia firm Electric Yarn, and find out more about the Play and Learn with Wallace App from Priddy Books on YouTube.

Storytelling in the Gaming Age: Poptropica’s publishing model, the new gaming literacy, and how publishers can tell (and sell) stories today

Presented by Jess Brallier, SVP and Publisher, Poptropica/Pearson

Jess Brallier of Poptropica sees today’s digital evolution as the expansion of storytelling, not its constriction. In this presentation, he talks about his team of storytellers — writers, illustrators, and programmers — and how Poptropica is inventing a new publishing model in real time.

Listen to Jess Brallier’s presentation.

Building Partnerships to Reach Tween Girls: A Dork Diaries Marketing Case Study

Mara Anastas, VP, Deputy Publisher, Pulse, Aladdin, Novelty & Media, Simon & Schuster

The marketing campaign for Dork Diaries grew organically out of the story, the characters, and the voice of the mother-daughter creative team behind the series. Simon & Schuster leveraged that creativity to develop partnerships with third-parties like KidzBop, Poptropica, and Stardoll. They created an interactive website in collaboration with S&S UK for a single English-language destination for fans of the books. In this presentation, VP, Deputy Publisher for Pulse and Aladdin Mara Anastas, shares the marketing approach behind Dork Diaries and explains how it has informed S&S’s developing digital strategy

Listen to Mara’s presentation.

See this Dork Diaries fan video, submitted for the KidzBop “Dork Yourself” contest.

Random Buzzers: Driving word of mouth with a YA audience

Presented by Sonia Nash Gupta (@snash12) and Linda Leonard (@loolooleonard), RandomBuzzers.com

Linda Leonard and Sonia Nash Gupta present about the teen list destination RandomBuzzers.com. They talk about the importance of creating content that engages readers and draws in new members as well as how they are evolving and amplifying members’ interests while promoting RH titles and authors.

Put Me In The Story

Dominique Raccah, CEO and Publisher, Sourcebooks (@draccah)

Sourcebooks founder Dominique Raccah talks about this new iPad app, featuring customized bestselling picture books for young readers.

Listen to Dominique Raccah’s presentation.

See coverage of the app in the NYTimes and this recent press release announcing the addition of two Sesame Workshop titles to the platform.

Making Content Searchable and Discoverable for Educators — the new Learning Resources Metadata Initiative (LRMI)

Presented by Neal Goff, Founder, Egremont Associates (@nealgoff)

The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) has set out to fix this problem, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has proposed a metadata tagging protocol that could help teachers find resources more easily on the web. Neal Goff, who has long experience in both trade and educational publishing and is a past president of the Association of Educational Publishers, explains the LRMI and talk about the opportunity for trade publishers to reach the education market with better metadata.

Listen to Neal Goff’s presentation.

The Expanding Education Market for Digital Books

With presentations by Terri Lynn Soutor, Vice President, Brain Hive (@terrisoutor) and Todd Brekhus, President, Capstone Digital (@ToddBrekhus)

The education market has been a solid market for publishers for years, but with the arrival of digital books, the market has become more challenging and confusing for educators and publishers. However, some companies are finding an expanding market and new opportunities for organic growth. Todd Brekhus of Capstone Digital and Terri Soutor of Brain Hive share details about their platforms and insight into developments and trends in educational technologies, the evolving use of digital content and mobile technology in the classroom, and what publishers can do to attract and reach the school market.