Sourcebooks continues to expand its offerings of licensed characters on its Put Me in the Story platform, most recently by adding Curious George to its list in time for the 2016 holiday season. Sourcebooks’ PMITS platform, originally launched in 2012 to produce personalized picture books for children, has grown in the past four years to provide – via a website and an interactive app that adds animation, background music, and sound effects – books in hardcover and digital formats, primarily for children, but also gift books targeting the adult market. Sourcebooks is partnering for the first time with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish PMITS versions of Curious George books, beginning this month with Curious George Curious You: On Your Way, which can be personalized with a child’s name, photo, and a special dedication from the gift giver. In 2017, Curious George and the Birthday Surprise will made available on PMITS.
Curious George, the classic children’s book series, was originally written by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey, and featured a monkey named George who leaves his home in Africa to live in a big city with “The Man With the Yellow Hat.” The first book in the series, Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys, was published in France in 1939, and the first one with George in it, Curious George, was published in 1941.
There are more than 140 children’s books currently on PMITS’s list, with Sourcebooks partnering with such companies as Disney, Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, and Hachette on popular licensed characters.
While declining to provide sales figures, Sourcebooks senior publicity manager Heather Moore noted that PMITS is one of the “top four channels for Sourcebooks.” The company is, she said, continuing its trend of double-digit growth, which it has been experiencing for “the past many years.” Currently, Sourcebooks’ point-of-sales is up 15%, primarily in adult fiction, young adult, and children’s books.
