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Publishing

2013 Children’s Product Trends

Cartoon of two men. One is disheveled and looks like a bum. The other says, “When your wife goes away on a business trip, you really let yourself go.”

One of my highlights las week was to hear Children’s Product Trends for 2013 by Dr. Mary Manz Simon. I took a few pages of sketch notes. You can see them here:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/066b3038-3e58-45f6-b9af-dba60afce353/6a780d060b4a2a636d8992223f2521e2

I was excited to see Warner Press‘ Fun Family Devotions highlighted as one of this year’s products.

Christian Elden has done a great job designing this and Wilson Williams Jr. did a fantastic job on illustrating the cover.

Here are some of the highlights from the seminar:

  • VeggieTales is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
  • Smart phones are continuing to affect children’s publishing as well as publishing in general
  •  Brick and mortar stores are still an important part of a shopper’s experience. Don’t assume everything is online!
  • Picture books were pronounced dead two years ago. Now they’re back (yes, it’s a cycle)
  • Books with pictures are receiving a resurgence.
    • Graphic novels are becoming mainstream in Christian publishing
    • Comic books for middle readers are also popular
    • Middle grade, illustrated books are trending up because we live in a visually oriented world.

I am excited that visually oriented books are seen as a trend once again. Let’s face it, nobody wants to read block after block of text, especially a fourth grader that is connected to the Internet. We like to see some pictures.

On the whole, I feel excited about children’s publishing. It is a good time for author/illustrators. Let’s get those products out there so the kids have something they want to read!