What's New in Paperback Series
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on July 19, 2007 Sign up now!
by Sally Lodge, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 7/19/2007
Mention middle-grade and young-adult series and certain author names spring to mind: J.K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Rick Riordan, Christopher Paolini, Stephenie Meyer. These are, of course, writers whose hardcover series make frequent appearances on bestseller lists and garner plenty of media attention. Less likely to make headlines are the many children's series published originally in mass market or trade paperback format. Yet their continued success and steady sales have made them staples of many publishers' lists and crucial to their bottom lines. Children's Bookshelf spoke with a number of editors from houses known for their series publishing about their recent and forthcoming series and what they perceive as changes and constants in this end of the business.
Several common strains surfaced. Publishers launching series today tend to head out of the gate a bit more cautiously than in decades past, often signing up just four books. Series will sometimes debut with multiple titles, yet houses are more likely to stagger the pub dates of subsequent releases rather than routinely add to the series on a monthly basis. Editors cite a cluttered marketplace, limited shelf space and the many activities and media options competing for youngsters' attention as incentives to find a tantalizing thematic hook for fledgling series. And there was general consensus that today's tweens and teens, accustomed to a fast pace of life, are rather fickle when it comes to their reading choices and, after sticking with a series for a while, are eager to move on to the next new thing.
Mixing the Tried and True and the New
At Random House, new series span a spectrum between those focusing on real-life, down-to-earth characters—in two cases characters familiar to an earlier generation of young readers—and those with an edgy appeal. In January, the publisher reissued four titles in Yearling's The Saddle Club series by Bonnie Bryant—Horse Crazy, Horse Shy, Horse Sense and Horse Power—each with a 65,000-copy first printing. "We felt that the themes of girls, horses and friendship are always popular and that these novels had withstood the emotional test of time," says Beverly Horowitz, v-p and publisher of Bantam Delacorte Dell.
"We didn't even go back to add references to cell phones and other technological developments, since we felt that these books didn't need that." The publisher will bring back a total of 12 volumes in the Saddle Club series, which has sold seven million copies since its launch in 1988.
Also well known to former series readers is Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley High, which Laurel Leaf is relaunching next April with Double Love and Secrets, due out with new covers and 65,000-copy first printings, and the inclusion of cell phoning, e-mailing and the like. Horowitz explains that there was enormous in-house nostalgia for this series, as many staffers recall growing up with the books, which have what she terms a universal appeal: "Sweet Valley High is about high school and adolescence, which everyone has to go through. These books tap into kids' need to know that their experiences and fears are normal and that they are not alone." SVH, which launched in 1983, has sold 150 million copies worldwide.
Two new Delacorte series depict teens with less ordinary lifestyles. Released in May, On the Avenue, the first title in The Celebutantes by Antonio Pagliarulo, introduces teenage triplets Lexington, Park and Madison, billion-dollar heiresses living in Manhattan's Upper East Side who solve the mystery of a fashion editor's murder. "This series is glamorous and it's about rich America and that's what people want to read," Horowitz states. Apparently this applies to people in other countries as well: Random House has sold rights to the series into a number of territories, including France, Germany, Australia and the U.K.
And due next February are Killer Spirit and Perfect Cover, the inaugural volumes in The Squad by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, which centers on cheerleaders who also fight crime. "This is Charlie's Angels meets Bring It On!," observes Horowitz. "It is commercial yet textured and more complex. We find that many readers are looking for more than the straight-up 'boy meets girl, boy gets girl, the end' story line. Kids will love the cheerleading angle but also the high action, thwarting evil angle."
Finding a Winning Hook
On the subject of making decisions about which series to publish, Bonnie Bader, editor-in-chief of Grosset & Dunlap and Price Stern Sloan, comments, "We're always looking at trends to see what series are out there, what is selling, where there might be a hole in the market or an interest not being served. Publishers are continually looking for a new hook."
Indeed, the new paperback series due from various Penguin imprints each has a distinctive angle aimed at hooking kids with a specific interest. Cooking is on the front burner in Dish, a Grosset & Dunlap series by Diane Muldrow that launched in February and served up four more courses in June. Illustrated by Barbara Pollak, these novels center on five middle schoolers—the Chef Girls—who launch a catering business. Aspiring spies will gravitate toward The Specialists, a YA series by Shannon Greenland that began in May with Model Spy. Promoted as Miss Congeniality meets Alex Rider, this Speak series centers on foster-care teens with special talents—and a knack for using them for the wrong reasons—who are invited to join a secret government spy agency.
Budding performers are the target audience for Fame School, a Puffin series that took its first bow in June with Reach for the Stars, Rising Star, Secret Ambition and Rivals! Penned by Cindy Jefferies, these books spotlight students at a performing arts school. An occurrence that any child hopes for—having a birthday wish come true—sets the stage for Jason Lethcoe's The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff, a fantasy series from Grosset & Dunlap that started up in April with You Wish and continues this month with Wishful Thinking. And an obviously popular—um, hook—in the currently hot market for all things pirate is Grosset & Dunlap's Pirate School by Brian James, a fantasy series aimed at boy readers, which took off in April with The Curse of Snake Island and sails on in September with Attack on the High Seas.
Bader comments that, when signing up a series, she usually commits to a four-book arc, calling that "a safe risk." Discussing the longevity of today's series, she says that her company typically reevaluates a series at around the 12-book mark and has found that "an extremely successful way to catapult a series even further" is to issue superspecial editions, commonly two or three stories in one volume. Her house has implemented this strategy with great luck with a number of long-running series, including Katie Kazoo, Hank Zipzer: The World's Greatest Underachiever and Camp Confidential.
Focusing on Timeless Themes
Elise Howard, senior v-p and associate publisher for fiction at HarperCollins Children's Books, cites another time-tested yet still viable way to extend—or reposition—a popular series: creating a spin-off. Her house last month introduced The Horse Charmer, the first title in Phantom Stallion: Wild Horse Island, a spin-off of Terri Farley's Phantom Stallion series, which launched in 2002 and has sold more than a million copies. The second novel, The Shining Stallion, pubs in September. "We took the original story arc to 24 books and now we've started a second arc," Howard says. "This gives us a chance to re-present the series to retailers, especially to those who didn't take the series at the start and perhaps didn't want to pick it up in the middle. And the retailers who were supportive of the series from the beginning can now merchandise the new arc."
Howard endorses the concept of launching series with multiple installments, noting that this strategy "allows the series to establish more of a presence at retail level. It gives us more of a shelf presence and increases our opportunity for merchandising the series, and it also signals to readers that this will be an ongoing narrative and they can expect more to follow." In keeping with this theory, HarperCollins launched The Tiara Club by Vivian French in January with three books, followed by three additional titles in March, April and May. This young chapter book series about six princesses-in-training has what Howard calls "an evergreen theme—princesses and sparkles," and features ever-popular stickers and what several editors cite as a big plus in the current climate: tie-in Web site activities.
Biting into another theme long in vogue is My Sister the Vampire by Sienna Mercer, a HarperTrophy series that starts up in August with Switched, followed by Fangtastic! in September. "Vampire books are a category that seems to be always popular but has exploded again recently, I think due in part to the success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and her subsequent books, which really captured the attention of readers and led them to search out other books on the subject," Howard observes. With this in mind, the publisher is releasing two omnibuses—one this month and one next summer—featuring L.J. Smith's The Vampire Diaries novels, which Howard reports have sold "hundreds of thousands of copies" since debuting in 1999.
Putting a different spin on series publishing, HarperCollins has had success in recent years with its thematic Beach Reads program, which launched in 2002 with Kate Cann's Grecian Holiday. The concept entails issuing three or four novels each summer that have a similar cover design and plots revolving around vacation trips, yet do not bear a specific series name or a numbered sequence. Similarly, the publisher plans to launch a line of paranormal-themed books in time for the Halloween season.
Goings-On at a House That Series Built
"Scholastic was built on the Baby-sitters Club, Animorphs and Goosebumps," muses Ellie Berger, senior v-p and publisher, noting that paperback series are still the foundation of their list, providing "good, predictable sales. We make an up-front investment and once the series is established in different markets, which can take longer now than it did in the past, we reap the benefits over a longer period."
Two of the authors that helped build the house of Scholastic make new appearances on its list. Ann M. Martin introduces two orphaned sisters who come to live with their grandmother in a New England town in Main Street, which debuted in May with Welcome to Camden Falls and will continue next month with Needle and Thread. And R.L. Stine returns to give kids the chills in a spin-off of Goosebumps, which has sold more than 300 million copies in 32 languages since 1992. Goosebumps HorrorLand, a 12-book series set in a vast theme park, is a serialized adventure that begins in April 2008 with Revenge of the Living Dummy. Scholastic has a $500,000 marketing campaign in place for the series.
Offering a different take on a series model is Candy Apple Books, a non-sequential line of books that have a branded look but are not numbered, which Berger terms "one of our strongest original paperback lines." Launched in January with The Accidental Cheerleader by Mimi McCoy and The Boy Next Door by Laura Dower, the line expanded in May with Miss Popularity by Francesco Sedita and How to Be a Girly Girl in Just Ten Days by Lisa Papademetriou. With a 250,000-copy in-print total, these contemporary tales, Berger says. "have had tremendous traction in the market."
Another successful variation on the traditional series is Rainbow Magic by Daisy Meadows, comprised of multiple seven-book arcs in which two girls visit Fairyland and encounter different kinds of fairies. Since it released the first title in March 2005, the house has sold more than two million copies of the books, which were first published by Orchard U.K. and have been translated into 20 languages. This month Scholastic launched the latest arc in the series, Jewel Fairies.
And other series this publisher launched between May and July this year are I ♥ Bikinis by various authors, Chasing Yesterday by Robin Wasserman, How I Survived Middle School by Nancy Krulik, In or Out by Claudia Gabel and Sister Magic by Anne Mazer.
What's Beating at Simon Pulse
Bethany Buck, publisher of Simon Pulse, cites the benefits of selling a trilogy or a four-book series to retailers. "Being able to present the books as a program rather than a single book helps with the initial buy in," she says. "We're not asking them to commit to it long-term, but it gives them the opportunity to try out a series on a moderate basis." When considering signing up a series, she looks for "a concept you can stretch out and a rich cast of characters you can mine for story development. Even though we may initially consider it a four-book series, we always look for a concept with room to grow."
Buck observes that today's young readers, with so much vying for their attention, tend to be less patient with ongoing story lines. "They seem to be quicker to decide that something is growing stale and to be on the lookout for something flashier," she says. The fashion world is the flashy backdrop for two recent Simon Pulse series. An intern in the fashion business stars in The Fashion Forward Adventures of Imogene, which debuted in January with A Girl Like Moi by Lisa Barham and will continue with Project Paris next month. And Jasmine Oliver's Project Fashion, centering on three students at a London fashion school, started up in March with Gucci Girls and added Armani Angels in June.
Press releases touting two other new Simon Pulse series make references to popular TV offerings. High School Musical is mentioned in the release for The Four Dorothys, the debut novel in Paul Ruditis's Drama! series, which has high-school theater as its stage. And Meadow Soprano's name headlines the release announcing For Money and Love, the inaugural volume in Todd Strasser's Mob Princess series. "Ruditis came up with the idea for Drama! before the High School Musical phenomenon, so we coincidentally had great timing on this," Buck says. "And Mob Princess, which we have dubbed our Meadow Soprano series, is an example of taking something—in this case The Sopranos—that is popular in the adult world and bringing it down to a teen level."
Series in the Stores
Not surprisingly, children's booksellers queried by PW noted that they welcome the wide spectrum of subjects covered by today's paperback series. Heather Doss, children's book buyer at Bookazine, says "I believe there is always room for new genres. I think the fantasy theme is starting to die off a bit. We've been on a fantasy kick so long that kids are looking for something different." She has seen a rise in popularity of series that depict kids in real-life situations and cites Scholastic's How I Survived Middle School as an example of a new successful series in that genre.
Doss and several other retailers also observed that series featuring fairies are currently flying high, especially the various Rainbow Magic series. Laura Moline, manager of Adventures for Kids in Ventura, Calif., agrees that Rainbow Magic, with "all those fairies and sparkles," has captured the attention of girls, adding, "this series is also great because it bridges a gap. It appeals to beginning readers but also to slightly older children who may be struggling with reading." Moline says she has not observed a dip in fantasy sales, remarking that they are especially strong at the young adult level. Though they were not released originally in paperback, the novels of Libba Bray and Cornelia Funke are particular favorites among her teen customers.
Whether set in fantasy realms or the real world, paperback series are clearly important components of publisher's frontlists and backlists and by all indications will continue to stay so. Themes and genres will shift in prominence, of course. "Core genres come back again and again over time, and each one meets a different need among kids," Horowitz says. Series can inspire a personal investment from readers who return again and again to revisit characters and locales. "Though they may talk to their friends about favorite parts or favorite characters," Horowitz adds, "readers often feel as though the book is written for them personally. They bring a lot to the books and they take away a great deal from them. That's a good thing."
