Put Me in the Story, Sourcebooks’s platform that enables consumers to personalize books, continues to move in new directions. Originally launched in November 2012 as an app that produces personalized picture books on the iPad, Dominique Raccah, publisher of Sourcebooks, announced Tuesday at Digital Book World that PMITS has added the series All the Wrong Questions by Lemony Snicket (alter ego of author Daniel Handler) to its platform. This collaboration with Snicket’s publisher, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, marks PMITS’s debut in the customized middle-grade book market. These titles, like the other books and products in the PMITS line, will be available on the PMITS website and as an interactive app with animation, background music, and sound effects. Books will also be available to consumers via POD.
There are currently more than 90 titles on the PMITS platform, and Sourcebooks has approximately 25 PMITS partners representing such brands as Disney, Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, Sanrio, and Peanuts, as well as popular authors like Nancy Tillman, Sandra Magsamen, and Stan and Jan Berenstain. In 2013, Sourcebooks signed photographer Anne Geddes for the platform.
“From the start, our aim has been to partner with publishing’s most creative visionaries and to build upon their vision for personalization of their books,” Raccah said in a release. “I am delighted to bring Lemony Snicket’s signature wit and word play to Put Me in the Story, and can’t imagine a better creative partner in exploring where personalization can go as we expand into juvenile fiction.”
Sourcebooks reports that its revenues were up 20% in 2014 and that PMITS, which grew its revenue 10 times over 2013, “contributed strongly to that growth,” as it did the previous year. Sourcebooks’ e-commerce, which includes the PMITS and Simple Truths websites, accounted for 15% of the company’s total revenues in 2014. Sourcebooks acquired Simple Truths in 2013 in an aggressive move into the motivational/inspirational market.
The PMITS release of the first four books in the All The Wrong Questions series will coincide with the September release of the fourth book in the series, “Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?” from LBYR. The previous books are “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” (2012), “When Did You See Her Last?” (2013) and “Shouldn’t You Be in School?” (2014). The All the Wrong Questions series is a prequel to Snicket’s previous series for middle-grade readers, A Series of Unfortunate Events, published between 1999 and 2006.
