Booking Costumes

A handy guide to in-store visitors

by Diane Patrick -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2002

One innovative way in which booksellers can dispel the winter blahs is to have a life-sized costumed character "visit" the store. Many costumes relating to children's titles are available to booksellers for promotional events such as story hours, anniversary sales, school visits, meet-and-greets and photo opportunities.

While some publishers handle the booking and maintenance of the costumes, many have outsourced the job to companies specializing in costume design and management.

As costumes are added frequently, be sure to ask for an updated list when contacting publishers and/or costume managers. Keep in mind when reserving costumes, that there is generally a backlog of requests. Map out your year early. You may even have to book a character and then figure out what kind of event you'll use it for later.

Here is a list, by publisher, of the costumes available.

ABBEVILLE PRESS
Felix the Bunny (from Letters to Felix). (See Costume Specialists within this listing.) BANTAM DOUBLEDAY DELL

Nate the Great. (See Costume Specialists.)

CANDLEWICK PRESS
The elusive Waldo (as in Where's...?) can be booked directly through the publisher via e-mail (waldocostume@candle wick.com) or by calling (617) 661-3330 (ask for the marketing assistant). The costume consists of a striped shirt and cap and an oversized pair of round glasses. Booksellers pay postage to return these items to the publisher.

Costume Specialists offers another Candlewick character, Maisy.

CHOUETTE
The costume available is Caillou, from the pre-school books and PBS series. Stores pay a $75 fee plus round-trip postage. Available from Jamey Cohan Productions, (212) 794-9220.

COSTUME SPECIALISTS
Costume Specialists suggests that booksellers call four to six months in advance for the best possible selection. Costumes are provided free of charge, for promotional use only. Reservations typically last from Thursday to the following Monday. The publisher pays the cleaning costs, so the only cost to the bookseller is shipping to cover sending the costume to its next event, which, for most costumes, is a flat rate of $120 for second-day air. Individual costume characters handled by Costume Specialists are listed under the each publisher. Contact Michael Howard, (614) 464-2145 or (800) 596-9357, ext. 303.

HARCOURT
Stellaluna and Auntie Claus. (See Costume Specialists.)

HARPERCOLLINS
Wild Thing, Pig (from If You Give a Pig a Pancake), Lilly (from Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse), Biscuit the puppy, Mouse (from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) and Amelia Bedelia. (See Costume Specialists.)

HarperCollins also offers dresses, hats and wigs (in both adult and children's sizes) for a Little House on the Prairie dress-up.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Houghton allows bookstores to handle their own shipping arrangements. UPS Ground rate is usually $50 to $70. Costumes available are: Curious George, the Man in the Yellow Hat, the hippos George & Martha, Tacky the Penguin, Lyle Lyle Crocodile and Rotten Ralph. (See Costume Specialists.)

LITTLE, BROWN & CO.
Costumes available are: Toot and Puddle (pig characters from the Holly Hobbie series) and Daisy the Duck (from Jane Simmons's series).

Little, Brown recommends stores book at least three months in advance. Costumes are loaned to stores for a one-week period. The publisher pays to ship costumes to the bookstore, but stores are responsible for sending them back (UPS Ground). Stores can defray this cost by using their publisher co-op. Contact Tricia Fagan at (617) 263-2814.

The Marc Brown character of Arthur the Aardvark is available from Jamey Cohan Productions at (212) 794-9220. Stores pay a $75 fee, plus round-trip postage.

NORTH-SOUTH BOOKS
Lars the Polar Bear. (See Costume Specialists.)

PENGUIN PUTNAM
Corduroy Bear, Max, Madeline, Peter Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, Froggy, Hedgie the Hedgehog, Spot the Dog, Pippi Longstocking, The Stinky Cheese Man, Pinkerton, Hank the Cow Dog, Timothy the Racoon and Strega Nona. The costumes for Little Miss Sunshine and Mr. Happy (from the Miss and Mr. Man series) are notable because they inflate. Each comes with an attached fan that fills the zipped costume with air and keeps the wearer cool while inside. Due to the special size of The Very Hungry Caterpillar costume, it requires $450 shipping. (See Costume Specialists.)

PLEASANT COMPANY
Angelina Ballerina. (See Costume Specialists)

RANDOM HOUSE
Costumes are: Cat in the Hat (must be returned via any second-day air service), Mama and Papa Berenstain Bears and Sister and Brother Berenstain Bears (both are sent as a set; must be returned via any second-day air), Annabella, Little Critter, Pat the Bunny, Peter Cottontail, Pokey Little Puppy, Road Hog, Saggy Baggy Elephant and Scruffy the Tugboat.

Customers are responsible for round-trip shipping of costumes to store and back to publisher. Available through Random House Children's Books' publicity department, (212) 547-3597.

SCHOLASTIC

Deluxe Clifford the Big Red Dog, Regular Clifford the Big Red Dog, Franklin the Turtle, Ms. Frizzle, Liz the lizard (Ms. Frizzle's pet), Berenstain Bears Scouts (brother and sister), Poppa Dumb Bunny, Miss Spider.

Both shipping and return of costume are prepaid by the publisher. Activity kits are sent with each costume. Available from the Scholastic Character Agency. Contact Jacklin Prescott Wilson, costume coordinator, at (800) 560 -3291.

SIMON & SCHUSTER

Jesse Bear, Mudge the Dog, Raggedy Ann & Andy, Lottie the Chicken, Bunnicula, Toby the Mouse. (See Costume Specialists.)

WORKMAN

Amanda Panda, BQ Dog, Shakira, Ryan Lion. (See Costume Specialists.)

Costume Specialists: Still Dressing (Up) for Success

One of the largest companies creating book-based, life-sized character costumes is Costume Specialists, Columbus, Ohio. The company has produced custom-made costumes for the publishing industry for more than15 years. The company now handles what it calls "walk-about" costumes for 11 publishers, as well as for restaurants, amusement parks and department stores.

Publishers pay the company from $2,500 to $3,500 to manufacture the costumes, which are stored at Costume Specialists and then made available to schools, libraries and booksellers who want to use them.

Costumes are wearer-friendly. Most are designed to be lightweight and comfortable. Mitts are fitted, to offer greater dexterity, feet are secured inside the costume shoe, and an optional fan with on/off switch is available for mounting inside the head of the costume.

France Holland, director of sales and marketing for the company, told PW that the reason it handles so many publishers is simply that "most people [in-house] don't want to be bothered with it." Owner Wendy Goldstein learned this first hand during a 1993 visit to Penguin Putnam's marketing department, where she noticed costumes all over the office waiting to be repaired, cleaned and shipped. Told by the staff that they loathed that part of the job, Goldstein offered her company's services to handle costume maintenance and shipping.

Both indie and chain booksellers use the costumes. According to David Chew, Costume Specialists' costume service manager, "The chains, because of the larger number of co-op dollars available to them, are often in a position to purchase the costumes outright." Although the costumes owned by the chains are housed at Costume Specialists, they are not part of the group of costumes that go out to other customers. To make sure there are enough to go around and preclude the chains from elbowing out the indies, Chew told PW, "we have pools of costumes available for certain markets and the chains are not allowed to use costumes from those pools."

Chew added that he's seen a subtle change over the past 10 years, which he attributes to the fact that many indies have changed or gone out of business: "Years ago, a few indies got together and bought a Madeline costume. But recently, we're seeing more schools and libraries using costumes than booksellers."

Still, large publishers are not the only ones who commission costumes. "I made a costume for a woman who self-published one book," said Holland. Now that's marketing.

The company expects its Web site (costumespecialists.com) to be up in the next month or so.