Big Guy Grows Up

by Bridget Kinsella, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 2/16/2006

Robert Gould started Big Guy Books in 2003 with the idea of revolutionizing the way publishers publish books for boys. Gould, a photographer and owner of a graphic design company in southern California, introduced the Time Soldiers series of picture books that combined the graphic effects of comics and Hollywood set design to try to court reluctant readers.

Courting reluctant readers sounded good to librarians and booksellers. The only problem was many boys in the third- to fifth-grade target audience were reluctant to be seen with the hardcover large-format picture books they thought looked babyish. Swallowing his entrepreneurial pride, Gould and his design team quickly repackaged the books in a smaller digest format—using the same elements from the original books but with the look and feel of an illustrated chapter book. Last fall Big Guy released both $15.95 hardcover and $5.95 digest versions of the same titles for the first time; and this spring, with the help of its new distributor, Independent Publishers Group, Gould says sales have already increased dramatically. Samurai, the sixth Time Soldier book, will be released in both formats this spring.

"I'm learning humility and patience," Gould says. "I was very reluctant to change what I thought was the product I wanted to put out there, but I listened."

Market feedback also showed Gould that book buyers wanted something that would bring these reluctant readers into chapter books. So, Big Guy's other news: it signed Michael Sullivan, the author of Connecting Boys with Books: What Libraries Can Do (American Library Association), to write just such a chapter-book series, around a character called Escapade Johnson. The first books in the series will publish in the fall.

Big Guy will publish 10 titles this year, including Gould's own recasting of fairy tales in an illustrated Father and Son Read Aloud Stories book coming out this spring. "In our research we found that too many fathers were not reading to their sons, and so boys did not associate reading with their fathers," Gould says. "We really listened to the people in the industry. But we are still going to be a very visually oriented company."

IPG president Mark Suchomel says he was impressed with Gould's commitment to the reluctant readers and his ability to respond quickly to the changes in format the accounts wanted. "A lot of other people would have given up on it," Suchomel says. "His commitment to reach the boys is behind what he does."