Children’s Book Online

In the course of a discussion a writer friend told me that the Children’s Book genre is very competitive one. He was narrating how anything falling out of the genre of text books is notoriously more challenging to market than mainstream fiction and non-fiction. The discussion led me to introspect as to whether it is something to do with the not-so-prevalent habit of book reading among the children or it is the failure of the circulation mechanism that are trying hard at many venues but are often clueless to understand the target audience.
When one is writing children’s books it is not only being addressed to a mixed audience, but the individual’s with purchasing power are only half your audience. Remember: children’s books are written for both a child, and the adult who is buying the book. True, there are some cases where a child has some spending money, but the majority of sales are impulse purchases made by adults for children.
In terms of the market trend to take the book out to the desired audience a whole lot of channels are being used. Some of them are doing large children’s festivals. One such writer/publisher admitted to not being successful in selling 30-40 copies in what was a whole day affair. Some of them are hitting malls but the footfall is increasingly getting less over there during recession and footfall-sales conversion being even lesser.
A few publishers whom I know also adopted the innovate strategy of developing an in-school program with puppet characters. So far they have gone to many schools and have more scheduled. Some schools do like the idea of interacting with them but not all will sell the books. And being an educationist I personally feel that the decision makers are different in every school…even within the same district.
Well, the market will keep plugging along till one finds the magic bullet. While I do support the idea of reaching out to your audience in whatever possible way, I recommend the writers/publishers to have a common meeting ground for the same. How about selling your books on the online kid’s corner? It can also be a common meeting ground where authors, parents, schools, teachers and even children can review the given book. At least, Chitra Awasthi and Rit International is open to this unique idea and we are offering it through www.chuckkle.com.
Easy, Fun, Inexpensive…Give it a shot!

Driven by the destiny

Well, I personally feel there are moments when you plan things out in the first place and then execute it in the process driven manner. However, there are “the moments” when destiny has its own way to drive you to the waves. All great works which have been recognized by the collective consciousness of the masses fall into the second category.
I too had a brush with such a momentum in life when we thought of doing something constructively for shaping the young minds. By no figment of imagination, at that point of time, had we thought of reaching the scale of operations that we have achieved now.
The humble beginning with the launch of country’s first children specific website Chuckkle was well appreciated by the teachers, students, parents and child psychologists. That appreciation drove us to plan something even bigger and the result was the genesis of Chuckkle India quiz.
By the time we reached to the semi finals and grand finale of the quiz, the response further goaded me and my team to plan out a Children Carnival. Not that there were no bottlenecks. The critics were not ready to accept that there is a room for such an event. Many of them even laughed at the idea.
However, it was destined to happen. One thing led to another and finally we have done it. The first ever exclusive Children Carnival of the NCR region is over and that too with élan. It was heartening to see the 1000 odd school children coming out to attend the carnival with such an enthusiasm.
Personally I was thrilled when the media tried to put words into my mouth for an all India Chuckkle Quiz. This is what I call the momentum which has been designed by the destiny. I take this opportunity to thank all the journalist friends and other well wishers who have supported me in making a dream of Children Carnival a reality. Without your support and encouragement we would not have reached thus far.
Hope to see you all being with Rit International and I promise to make the world a lot better for the children. I believe in “one life one mission” and at the moment my only mission is to shape the young minds constructively.