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HarperCollins Rolls Out Mass-Market Line
Sally Lodge -- 3/2/98
New imprint aims to capture the immediacy of movies, TV, sports and computers in books
This spring will bring the official debut of HarperActive, HarperCollins's first children's imprint aimed at the mass market. Its name is meant to emphasize the line's commitment to creating books, including media tie-ins and celebrity biographies, that keep pace with our fast-moving times. And its logo, which features the bold-faced letters "ha" positioned over the imprint's full name, underscores the company's goal to publish into this line titles that, as the current catalogue states, "kids read when they just want to have fun!"

Spearheading this mission is Hope Innelli, v-p and editorial director of HarperActive, who described the imprint's broad target audience as "kids from the ages of two to 16 who are interested in all media. We want to build on HarperCollins's history and strong presence in the children's trade marketplace while reaching out to kids who have their heart in film, television, music, sports, computers and video games but who have their heads in books."

Innelli, who was formerly director of product development for children's media at Random House, moved to Harper in November 1996 to start up this imprint. She explained that HarperActive will concentrate on "branded properties suitable for mass market as well as the trade, covering a range of age levels, formats and price points." The line will be sold by both the HarperCollins's trade and mass-market sales forces.

Given HarperActive's focus on licensed products with roots in a variety of media, it comes as no surprise that a number of its initial publishing projects are based on properties developed by HarperCollins's sister companies, Twentieth Century Fox and Saban Entertainment. The very first HarperActive releases, which shipped last fall, were 12 titles (including a novelization, a diary with musical chip and a die-cut board book that squeaks) tying into Fox's first full-length animated film, Anastasia. Four additional Anastasia tie-ins will be published this spring to coincide with the video release of the film. And launching in May with four 8 x 8 storybooks is HarperActive's multi-format series based on Saban Entertainment's "all-new" Captain Kangaroo, which will begin airing on the Family Channel in the fall. The introductory titles are Home, Sweep, Home; Do You See What I See?; A Fright in the Night; and Sharing Time.

HarperActive is also bringing out biographies of luminaries long on kid appeal, including rapper-turned-actor Will Smith, musical group The BackStreet Boys and (combined in a single volume) tennis stars Martina Hingis and Venus Williams.

Yet another sports headliner, basketball's Patrick Ewing, is at the center of one of the imprint's leading series, Patrick's Pals. An unusual meshing of the real and the imaginary, these books relay the fictional adventures of Ewing and three of his pro-basketball peers, Dikembo Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning and Keith Van Horn, who appear in the novels as 12-year-olds. Written in cooperation with these athletes, who shared anecdotes with author Rob Armstrong, Patrick's Pals starts up in May with two releases, In Your Face! and Runnin' with the Big Dawgs, both illustrated by Bruce Smith. Innelli noted that HarperActive plans to develop additional "with celebrity attachments."

To help spread word of this series (as well as of its consumer sweepstakes to win a pair of Knicks tickets), the company will distribute chapter samplers to youngsters attending the Knicks' last game of the season at Madison Square Garden in April. Ewing will help promote Patrick's Pals with appearances in a range of book outlets. Young fans not fortunate enough to catch sight of him in person can view a life-size likeness of the star, which is attached to a 24-copy dump that will ship with the series' first releases.

Karen Staubi, associate director of marketing for HarperCollins Children's Books, observed that the promotional venues for Patrick's Pals and HarperActive's other titles breaks new marketing ground for her department. "The books' licensing and celebrity angles offer us great opportunities for innovative promotion," she said. "We will schedule promotions and author appearances in the mass outlets, which we've not done before. And we also plan to tie in our promotion and advertising campaigns for licensed properties with those of other licensees, including clothing and toy manufacturers. This is all new to us-and very exciting."

HarperActive's fall list includes an example of another genre that the line will feature: the spoof. According to Innelli, Vegemorphs by Chris Steinbach (a.k.a. "Leif E. Green") "pays tribute to Animorphs, a bestselling series that has succeeded in attracting kids in droves, much in the way that TV shows and movies do." Clearly this lighthearted book, which gives new meaning to the phrase couch potato, is one that makes HarperActive's logo seem right on target.
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