This is the second part of dotMomming's interview with Juraj Hlavac, the man behind the ground-breaking app Bobo Explores Light. Look for more enriching, educational apps from him and his development studio GameCollage.
dotMomming: You've also produced two other app picture books - The Little Mermaid and The Three Little Pigs - along with some game apps. But currently in the App Store, there are dozens of Little Mermaids and Little Pigs. What about more original stories? Do you see GameCollage adapting existing stories or producing completely original stories?
Juraj Hlavac: I can see GameCollage going both ways. Both The Little Mermaid and The Three Little Pigs were stepping stones in understanding the technology and developing a framework as a basis for future apps. In that same vein, Bobo is a stepping stone to the next thing, whatever that may be.
My personal passion lies in education because I believe that so much more can be accomplished in that space. The problem, up until now, was that technology and education were always somehow incompatible. Either technology was too expensive or too cumbersome to be integrated effectively in the classroom setting. However, that's quickly changing. A teacher can invest into an iPad for only $300 and kids walk around with their parents' old iPhones in their pockets. The proliferation and the portability of these devices means that the classrooms are more ready now than they ever were to experience software that actually makes a difference in not only how kids learn, but how they approach learning.
So, to answer your question, I'm less concerned about whether the next set of stories will be adaptions of existing content or something entirely new, as long as they keep exciting and inspiring kids to read and to learn.
DM: Bobo was a great example of high-minded book creation for kids - packed with information about big science concepts like how light works, how the eye sees, and so much more, it was full of quality learning. But the way kids could interact with the information and mess around with the app tools was what made it remarkable. It represents some of the best of what digital learning can be. So there's a high mark. But on the other side, you're also making games like Pop Fizz Gold that offers "hours of relaxing fun." So what are you guys? High or low digital entertainment?
JH: Indeed, Bobo comes in a wake of other apps of smaller scope, such as the casual game Pop Fizz you mention. However, I see that as less of a conflict and more as evolution. I began GameCollage in the spirit of exploring new technology and understanding what apps are and what they can be. To borrow the analogy I mentioned earlier, they were all stepping stones to the next thing. As I progressed through this journey, I gained some valuable skills on how to write code for the iOS devices as well as inside knowledge on how to harness the power of the app store.
To that effect, all the other apps I've published earlier are not so much incongruent with the current goals of GameCollage as they are a nostalgic testament to the journey I took to get here. Plus they are still fun games that people enjoy, so I keep them current in the store.
DM: What's next?
JH: At this very moment we are finishing up a fairly substantial Bobo update that will make the app harness the new iPad retina display. After that, stay tuned for the next big thing. When the time comes, I'll announce it on Twitter (@GameCollage) as well as on the GameCollage website. Consider yourself warned.
In all seriousness, this has been a great and extremely rewarding journey for me and I'm excited to keep evolving. With a bit of luck, the hope is to keep bringing more richness and value to the apps available to all kids world-wide that, in their small way, make a difference.
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center has come out with some interesting studies about print books and e-books, and their peppy cousin the enhanced e-book. The results, which you can read at Digital Book World, are significant not only for the learning they show among young readers, but also for the perceptions parents have about the way young people read. Look for a complete report on the survey by the end of this summer.
There seems to be a bit of a disconnect.
One study showed that kids, ranging in age from 3 to 6 years, preferred reading an e-book to a paper book. And it looked at their comprehension rates, showing no difference between the paper format and the digital one. This study was small but is one of the first of its kind to attempt to determine if there is a preference or difference in how kids take in stories.
When you add the enhanced e-books like picture book apps into the mix, allowing for more finger swiping and tip tapping, comprehension rates drop, the study shows. Food for thought for teachers incorporating picture book apps into the classroom, but also great fodder for app producers trying to stay true to book apps as learning tools for young readers.
In another Cooney Center study, taking the pulse of 1,200 parents, it might come as no surprise to learn that parents prefer print books over digital when they read with their children. But the interesting tidbit here is that they believe their children do too. (Parents, see above study.)
I can't disagree with the Old Guard in this survey. And though I don't want to be lumped in with any of the hysteria around parents worrying that tablets are turning their readers into zombies, I'll be the first to admit that I still love snuggling up on a pillow with my kids and sharing a paper book. While I am fine with my kids reading a novel or picture book app on the iPad during the day, there is something intrusive about having a screen on at bedtime.
Many of us spend a big part of our day policing screen time and knocking our kids off the electronic toys and out onto the green stuff growing in the yard. So while it's good to see studies that show positives around children's engagement with digital books, it will likely take a while for parents to get behind the notion of a glowing screen on when the stars come out.
What about you? What do your kids prefer? And how do you read to them at bedtime?
I love lists. Making them, marking things off of them, threatening to put my children on them. Lists for top movies and songs are always helpful when I'm feeling indecisive about what to play. And lists for books are precious for addled brains like my own when I'm at the library or bookstore and feeling overwhelmed by all my choices.
So when Betsy Bird announced a new poll on her Fuse #8 blog for top picture books and chapter books, I was very excited. It's fun to consider what stories stand the test of time, and what new authors and books are essential to any bookshelf. And for dotMomming, I want to know if the best books for kids are becoming available in digital format.
The current poll repeats the enormous feat Betsy pulled off in 2009. Here are the top 10 picture books that made the list then:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (1947)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1979)
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003)
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1941)
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (1955)
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (1939)
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (1928)
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004)
Way back in 2009, the iPad was only a glimmer in Apple's eye. It wasn't released until April 2010, so the idea of enhanced picture books was still a ways off. But what about now? How many of these top picture books can you download in the App Store today?
Where the Wild Things Are?Nope. And judging by Maurice Sendak's feelings about e-books, it would take a lot of convincing to bring about an app.
Goodnight Moon? What you find in app format is not the picture book. Very Hungry Caterpillar? Here's the first of these top 10 books to appear in the App Store, though it's not the picture book but rather a math game featuring the adorable caterpillar and Eric Carle's lovely fruit. The Snowy Day? Nope.
Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Busarrived in app format in October 2011 as Don't Let the Pigeon Run This App! (Disney, $6.99). Rather than provide the same content as the paper book, Willems' app lets young readers create their own pigeon stories again and again. Willems is clearly committed to traditional reading and ventured into digital books reluctantly, describing e-books inUSAToday, "With all their bells and whistles and word jumbles and assorted narrative killers, after we turn them on, they don't need us."
Make Way for Ducklings app? Nope. Harold and the Purple Crayon (Trilogy Studios, $6.99) is available in a lovely app format that made the CYBILS app finalist list this year. Madeline? Nope. Millions of Cats? Nope. Knuffle Bunny? Not yet, but there might be hope.
"I didn't want to be some reactionary luddite," Willems says in the USAToday interview. "I'm not saying everything electronic is evil."
Check out the rules for nominating your picks for the top 100 picture books and chapter books on the Fuse#8 blog and then email your favorites to Betsy Bird at Top100Poll@gmail.com. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. Eastern on April 15, 2012.
We heard from author-illustrator Sue Shanahan last month about her beautiful new app, Love You to the Moon and Back, from award-winning app producer Auryn. This week dotMomming features Umesh Shukla, founder and CEO of Auryn, to find out more about the app market, picture books, and children's literacy.
Kirkus Reviews calls the Auryn team "some of the best developers in the business." And through collaborations with legendary children's authors like Rosemary Wells, it is establishing itself as a serious player in the highly competitive children's app market. Readers who are not yet familiar with Auryn's books can get up to speed quickly this month as Auryn plans to give away a free picture book app every day in celebration of National Reading Month.
dotMomming: You have come out with some lovely apps based on print picture books, such as Don Freeman's stories (Hattie the Backstage Bat, Inspector Peckit), the Teddy books, and the Miko series. Can you explain how this model – creating enhanced, interactive books out of existing print books – is successful for an app producer?
Umesh Shukla: In any content business, working with an established brand always helps; even more, when a new format like the tablet comes along. We have been fortunate to have worked with numerous established brands. It has mutually benefited both us and these brands. While we get an opportunity to showcase our capabilities with the help of these brands, they get Auryn’s expertise in maintaining their brand value, while transforming their intellectual properties to a new medium.
DM: Do you see Auryn opening the door to original stories from new authors and illustrators? Why or why not?
US: Absolutely. Every new device presents some very unique, device-specific storytelling opportunities, and we are very keen to move in that direction with the right creative partners.
DM: Auryn is one of the first producers out of the starting gate. How has that worked in your favor? Now that the bigger houses such as Scholastic are entering into app-land, what does that mean for smaller independents such as Auryn?
US: It’s still an emerging field. We believe there is plenty of room for players both big and small. Having bigger players enter the field simply establishes the validity of the new format, and helps everyone involved in creating content for that medium.
DM: What type of books do you see Auryn creating – strictly picture books for young readers, or older interactive books for middle-schoolers, too? What do you hope to accomplish as a producer of enhanced books for kids?
US: Currently our focus is in picture books, as they allow us to showcase our patented rendering technology. But we are in the storytelling business and do plan to open ourselves to other genres in coming months/years.
DM: Can you speak to literacy learning? How do you see the uptake of books and learning changing for young readers as more classrooms open up to digital media? And where do picture book apps such as the ones Auryn produces fit in?
US: I am very excited by the emerging opportunities new devices offer in every kind of learning. School bags are going to get much lighter. Now abstract concepts can be presented in so many subtle and interesting ways to help a child grasp them better. The learning possibilities are enormous.
A small example of it would be the inclusion of pronunciation guides in our apps. While the child is reading the story, he or she can learn to relate the sound to the words. I think we are lucky to be working in a medium that is being defined and redefined everyday. We hope to play a big part in shaping its future.
I wanted to share an interesting post over at Wired's Geek Dad about the future of apps for children. The author, Daniel Donahoo, talks about a push toward app development for children that is purposeful rather than just profit-driven. And while it might sound like an idealized world he's seeking, it is one worth striving for: quality products geared for kids that can harness all that finger-tapping energy for good.
Donahoo imagines "medium-sized independent and corporate developers of children’s apps existing side by side, all pushing each other to produce better digital tools for kids' learning and development. But I believe it has something to do with the crowd and also educating and supporting parents to make the best consumer choices and to support a breadth of apps and digital tools – not just the same old franchised apps from movies and books that we see everyday."
A key point Donahoo notes, among many, is pricing. "If we are to sustain the vibrant and dynamic number of children’s app developers we need to move beyond the 0.99c app. Consumers are currently downloading content for children that is at bargain basement prices and the problem is that could drive some of the key innovators out of their own development studios and over to larger players, or away from children’s apps and into more profitable digital arenas."
I think of this as the Organic Milk Approach. I pay a little more for organic milk because I believe it's better for my kids' developing brains and bodies, I want to support organic farmers and keep them in business, and I want to ensure that higher-quality products like this stay in the mainstream market.
Same for quality children's apps.
Donahoo and Andy Russell, co-founder of Launchpad Toys and the much-lauded children's app Toontastic, have put forth The Children's App Manifesto and begun pushing educators, marketers, investors, app developers, and most importantly parents to think about ways to best support quality educational digital content.
After my first-grader asked me just a few days ago to wake him up at 5 a.m. so he could harvest his Smurf pumpkins -- and purchase a few Smurfberries too -- two Manifesto items hooked me right away:
Play should not be over-commercialized by consumable goods nor advertisement.
Apps should not disguise costs nor manipulate children’s emotions to entice spending.
My first-grader was excited to use a coupon at his school's paperback bookstore the other day, and I stopped him. He had in his hands a copy of The Magic School Bus: On the Ocean Floor, and I, as if moving in slow motion, pointed back toward the bright yellow bookshelf and told him to pick another book. I was experiencing a complete out-of-body moment, hearing my voice from some far away place tell him, "We can download this book. It will be way better on the iPad."
And it is.
Bypassing a paper book for a digital one is still a new thing to me. And I am squeamish about it sometimes, fearing that my favorite neighborhood haunt, 57th Street Books, will disappear because I opt for an app instead of a former tree. So moments like the one at my son's school make me itchy.
But let's face it, digital books can do things that paper cannot. And in some realms, such as the informative, nonfiction picture book world where Magic School Bus dominates, the digital version is unbeatable. One look at the Oceansapp, and the future of e-learning becomes clear.
The first real interactivity comes when young readers tap the bubbling water near an illustration of a sea urchin. A screen rolls down, and quick-hit bulleted points about sea urchins appear beneath a short video clip of an actual sea urchin. Budding naturalists can watch a spiny purple creature scoot along the ocean floor -- not just an artist's rendering of it, but actual undersea footage.
Interactive games demonstrating how various sea life swims teach the difference between a whale's means of locomotion vs. a squid's vs. a jellyfish's. Detailed photographs of sea stars, limpets, periwinkles, and others offer real-life examples of sea animals kids might not otherwise get to know. More video clips of flounder drifting among rocks drive home the benefits of camouflage.
Aside from showing kids the habitats and behaviors of undersea life, as well as showing phenomena like hot water vents and ocean waves, the app offers a variety of entry points for literacy learning. The read-along narration illuminates each word in red as it is spoken. Little fingers can tap the dialogue bubbles and hear the kids and Ms. Frizzle ask questions or comment on the scene as they read the words in the speech bubble. Whether a pre-reader or a confident one, the app is accessible to many levels.
Priced at $7.99, $1 more than the paperback, this book is packed with opportunities for interactive, exciting learning. Consider it a kid-friendly Jacques Cousteau adventure, right at young readers' fingertips. Magic School Bus: Oceans presents the best digital media has to offer young learners. Worth checking out immediately.
As more e-readers are getting into the hands (and under the tapping fingers) of young readers, picture book apps are gaining a wider audience. But not at the public libraries. To understand a bit more about why, dotMomming reached out to Chicago Public Library Youth Materials Specialist Andrew Medlar. This is the last in a series of posts in our conversation about digital books.
"Apps of all types are a significant consideration in our latest Strategic Plan," Medlar says, "and for the book/media industry at large. We can only offer our communities that which is available in the first place, and many of the great sessions and discussions at this summer’s BookExpo America and American Library Association conferences focused on apps and the fact that while they are exciting, and many are fabulous, no one has yet figured out how to make them able to be checked out through libraries."
Among the library's hurdles is that some of the major publishing houses are resistant to making their titles available to public libraries for e-book lending.
"Several major American houses still won’t even allow libraries to buy their e-book titles even though that technology is readily available—and so the logistics of app circulation simply haven’t been satisfactorily developed," Medlar says.
And while it's the publishing houses dragging their feet, some perceive public libraries to be the staid institutions clinging to the paper era. But that's certainly not the case in Chicago, where the Chicago Public Library's flagship Harold Washington Library is leading the way with its teen-centric YOUmedia space. Through YOUmedia, teens turn to the library to check out tools ranging from digital cameras to laptops, and to collaborate and create with new media.
"The Library is always evolving in how we support Chicagoans in new ways of reading, learning and discovering," Medlar says, "and this is a key area of strength in our past, present and future Strategic Plans.
"The expansion of YOUmedia from its internationally renowned success at the Harold Washington Library Center into more neighborhoods across the City is a prime example. The role of the public library has always been to provide access to information – the ways in which patrons now demand that information has changed (and is constantly changing), so it libraries are adapting to those new formats."
It's an exciting time for libraries as they make the changes necessary to stay relevant in a digital age. And I imagine that doing so under anemic budgets is all the more challenging. So whether it's a book in paper form or electronic, the library is working hard to satisfy the demands of a changing audience.
"Content trumps format, and reading, in any way, shape or form, is a positive, educational, fun, and lifelong activity," Medlar says. "As far as the physical form of the text, for young people it’s not an either/or proposition; they move back and forth between e-books and p-books without a problem."
"Let’s just give them the freedom to pick from all of the great stories out there in the world, however they’re told."
It would be easy to sum up Let Me See. . . What Will I Be? in a single word: adorable. But there's much more to the story about Miss Rosie Red than first meets the eye.
Written by Northern Ireland author-illustrator Trisha Deery and produced by Derry media company Dog Ears, What Will I Be? was released simultaneously as an app and a paper book. It features the curious Rosie, age 3-ish, and her delightful two sidekicks, Baby and a cat named Cooper.
The story is simple. Rosie has been invited to a birthday party and must decide what she wants to be for it. An astronaut? A fairy? A dinosaur?
The narration is sweetly performed by a young child, and my three kids could not get enough of it. The book is geared for the youngest appsters, but older readers will get a kick out of this toddler's antics. My six-year-old ate it up, taking joy in what the young whippersnapper Rosie was up to.
Darling illustrations of Rosie and her friends dressed in each possibility offer just the right amount of interactivity without letting little fingers lose track of the story. The emphasis is on Rosie and her excitement about going to a birthday party, and the resolution is spot on.
Miss Rosie has a strong appeal, and her charming companions Baby and Cooper create an irresistible triple-threat. Dog Ears reports the possibility of a TV show in the works, along with more books. What we liked best about Rosie was that her dress-up choices were not stereotypically girlie. Sure, the fairy option was a sparkly pink froth, but it was balanced by Rosie as a dinosaur and as an astronaut.
There is an air about this character -- resplendent in her striped red tights -- that is reminiscent of a certain pig with a big personality. Here's hoping we see more of Miss Rosie Red. With all this potential, who knows what she will be.
$2.99 for iPad and iPhone; paper book available in English and Irish
It's no surprise when wee ones these days look at a VCR tape and wonder what in the world to do with it. Ditto phones attached to walls, CD racks, and the handles that roll car windows up and down.
What breaks the heart of newspaper lovers everywhere is the notion that this same under-40-inches set will not know what you can do with a newspaper. Roll it up and train the dog. Wrap dishes and coffee mugs in it and pack for a move. And best of all, fold it up and make a hat.
That's why Finn's Paper Hat caught our eye. Produced by Tizio Publishing, the same folks who created the enchanting Fierce Grey Mouse, Finn's Paper Hat is the second app from talented author-illustrator Chantal Bourgonje.
In this story, Finn creates a newspaper hat and embarks on some exciting adventures. When rain pours down, he doesn't worry about the water drenching his hat. He turns it over and sets sail. With engaging animation, Finn's journey moves from ocean waves to a bumpy encounter with a whale.
Readers can tap the page to add snowflakes at the North Pole and drag their fingers across the page to run the whale aground. More encounters with a seal bring other adventures as Finn makes the best of every situation. And his creative uses for the paper hat celebrate imagination.
While many apps can be heard in a variety of languages from Mandarin to Dutch, Finn's Paper Hat offers options I've not seen before: Readers can choose to have the narration performed in Australian English, American English, U.K. English, and beyond. I chose English narration with an Irish slant, and I felt like Colin Farrell was snuggled in the chair with me. Sigh.
Finn's Paper Hat offers extras that include a how-to guide for making your own paper hat, as well as coloring pages. $1.99 for iPad
We're always on the lookout for a good time over here at dotMomming. So when we discovered the fast-paced, downright thrilling picture book apps created by Crab Hill Press, we got a little weak in the knees. Their Nash Smasher! app, about a boy with a certain amount of joie de vivre and a hammer, made our top picks for summer. And My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Carstill has us reeling.
Of course we had to reach out to Crab Hill and meet the imaginative minds behind such madcap fun. Bill Doyle serves as chief writer and Rachel Ericson is creative director.
DotMomming: I see on one of your pages that you have "30 years combined experience in kids publishing." Can you elaborate? You come from book backgrounds. What made you make the leap into apps and digital books?
Bill: Rachel and I both come out of the print world. We became friends at Sesame Workshop in the '90s. I was editor of a magazine called Kid City, based on The Electric Company, and Rachel was art director of Contact Kids Magazine, based on the show 3-2-1 Contact. After Sesame, we had a blast freelancing on different projects together and had always talked about working on our own thing. We’re both gadget geeks—so when apps first appeared on the radar, we knew we wanted in.
It helped, too, that I’d been writing for different websites and different interactive publishers like LeapFrog. I was itching to apply some of what I was learning to our own projects.
DM: The joys of running your own app development business likely are many, including having complete control of the content and look of the books you're creating. Can you explain the appeal of Crab Hill Press and what you enjoy most about it?
Bill: I love working with big publishers. You can’t beat the editors I’ve worked with, the illustrators I’ve been paired with, or the support and distribution the big companies can offer.
It’s exciting, though, for us to go out on the tightrope on our own…either we do some cool acrobatics that gets the crowd going…or we might fall. Either way, it’s a rush just knowing that it’s all up to us.
Rachel: We seriously only do what we enjoy. Bill is super enthusiastic, which makes it more fun, and the chain of command is pretty short. There's me, and there's Bill. And usually we agree. Of course, we hope that it will translate into being rich and famous one day, but mostly we're making apps we really believe in. And we focus on quality, originality, and content. There is no one in the process disputing our gut feelings or diluting an idea.
I also love being able to work with great people. Troy Cummings and Daniel Guidera are both illustrators I've worked with extensively in the past. Together with Mark Arenz, the fantastic programmer of our apps, we not only have a really talented and creative team, but also one that's really FUNNY. It's definitely my policy to only work with people I like, and these guys crack me up all the time.
DM: The flip side of the coin is that you assume all the risk and all the expense: developing the platform your apps run on is costly, you have to sell a lot of books to see a profit. Can you talk about the stresses and nail-biting moments of running Crab Hill?
Bill: I think the two days after we released our first app, Nash Smasher!, were a little harrowing and when I chewed up the most nails. That second after we were approved for the App Store and went on sale, I thought, “Oh, we’ve put out an app and there are millions and millions of people with devices…we’re going to be HUGE immediately.” That wasn’t the case. While Apple has always been amazing to us and featured us in New & Noteworthy and What’s Hot, at first we kind of sank unnoticed into the huge pile of apps. We tried running ads on Google and Facebook...those didn’t work out. Lucky for us, Apps4Kids.net was the first site to notice us. And, a couple months later, when The New York Times named Nash Smasher one of the Top 10 Kids Books for the iPad, things really started to move.
Rachel: I think the approval process for each app has been the only moment where I bite my nails. That's when you send your baby out in the world and it's out of your hands. It was also a bit of a cold shower to see that we didn't automatically sell thousands or even hundreds in a day. But I've adjusted my expectations, and we're exploring new ways in order to better the sales figures for our current and upcoming projects.
DM: For authors and illustrators considering going this way, I think it's important for them to understand profit margins in the two publishing realms (app vs. traditional). Can you give a sense of what's in it for authors and artists once a platform is set up -- from what I can see, there is real money to be made despite the low price of apps.
So let's talk profit margins and sales. Both of your picture book apps sell for $1.99 in the App Store. Can you break down (in general terms) the costs involved in bringing a picture book app to life -- from idea (and you have had fabulous book ideas!) to finished product? What percentage are you taking home for each app downloaded? In the traditional book market, a picture book needs to sell about 10,000 copies to be deemed a success. How many sales do you need to "make it" as an app? And to "make it BIG"?
Bill: Print is a big part of both of our lives, and individually we have great relationships with big companies. For example, I’ve got a book with Scholastic that sold about 450,000 copies in a year. Those kinds of numbers are extremely hard to beat—and so is the support and talent you can access.
Because we’re small, we don’t have the overhead of big publishers. So we can charge a little less for our apps. And when it comes to margin, the 70/30 split that Apple has established is incredibly fair.
Speaking of fair, that’s something I’ve learned from publishers and book packagers I’ve worked with: Be fair to the people you’re working with. Give illustrators the credit and percentage they deserve.
Rachel: I'm not really sure what that number would be to consider your app a success. We're doing our best to make sure that the people involved in our app production get compensated fairly. But we're not Angry Birds…yet.
DM: Production time is one of the major differences between picture book apps vs. picture books with paper pages. For an author, it might take more than a year to see your book make it through the editorial process and onto a bookstore shelf. For a picture book app, the process can be just a matter of months. Can you talk about Nash Smasher! and My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Car and how long the creative process took for those apps?
Bill: One of my favorite print books out now is Attack of the Shark-Headed Zombie which took about two years to go from idea to shelf. I thought our apps would be much, much faster. But time gets eaten up in different ways, and both Nash Smasher! and My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Car took about half a year. It helps that we work with one of the best and most creative programmers, Mark Arenz—he keeps us moving at just the right pace.
Rachel: I’d agree. I think it took about six months from concept to launch. It might have been faster if Crab Hill Press was my day job, but luckily we didn't have the stress of a hard and fast deadline hanging over our heads.
DM: There is a sort of gold rush happening in app-land as authors, illustrators, and publishers flock to this new frontier. How do you avoid getting swept up in the frenzy to throw as many apps out there as you can and see what sticks? How do you ensure quality -- in story content, illustration and interactive features?
Bill: I think creating apps is a little like dating. You don’t want to rush things, promise too much, come off as desperate, or seem greedy. Because Rachel and I both are still working in the print world with other publishers, we have the luxury of time right now. Plus, as someone who’s wanted to be a writer his whole life, I have a file cabinet full of ideas and it’s fun to sift through them and find just the
right new project.
One quick quality suggestion: Don’t skimp on sound in your apps! I had a teacher at NYU who said if you only have a little money for a film, spend it on a good microphone. The same idea is true for apps. Good sound will take you a long way. Oh! And respect your reader. Don’t oversell in the iTunes description and be very careful not to talk down to kids in the books.
[Check out a clip of Crab Hill's My Dad Drives a Roller Coaster Car to get a sense of how important audio is to the app experience.]
Rachel: Working with the right people, remaining enthusiastic, and respecting your audience are the best ways to keep your quality high. Busy with all sorts of things in life, we choose our projects carefully, and don't have time to throw out a bunch of apps to see what sticks. So that helps. In addition to that, I have a five-year-old and feel responsible to create things I'm extremely proud of: if it’s not good enough for her, it’s not good enough.
DM: Coming from traditional books and now venturing into apps, how do they compare for you -- creatively speaking? Where does your heart lie? And what do you see for the future of picture books?
Bill: With the more traditional print books I write, I find this wonderful focus…where each and every word is an important brick in the mental picture and character composite you’re building for readers.
The book apps are different kinds of productions. I can bring in a few more of the
things I picked up at NYU, and combine even more of the things I love: design, art, story, lighting, music, and voice talent.
What’s exciting about the future of kids book apps is that no one is completely sure where it’s going. We attended the incredible Dust or Magic App Camp in May and met all sorts of developers from one-person companies to those working with Disney…and it seems we’re all on the same terrific ride: trying to figure out what will be the next big thing!
Rachel: I love paper, I’m always going to be creating things for print… but an app is just wide open as far as what you can do with it. It’s a very exciting time for designers, and it makes my brain hurt trying to think of ways to be more creative!
There will always be a future for picture books though; the market may change, but it won't go away. If anything it will make the market for quality books stronger. Think of movie theaters… everyone thought they would die once we were able to watch films at home, but in actuality it's motivated the industry to make better movies and made going to the movie theater something special. Holding a book in your hands will always remain something special.
In this fourth and final installment of our conversation with Patrick Cox, who teaches Children's Literacies, a Rutgers University course about learning to read in the digital age, we address attitudes about digital books and their utility. A recent Christian Science Monitor article dismissed narrated picture book apps as an annoying diversion to keep kids occupied at restaurants. While I like to rope off family talking time from screen time, I don't have a problem with a book in whatever form it might take. But there are many, like the Christian Science Monitor writer, who disagree. Giving a child an e-reader "walls them off from the social connections that are part of why we go to restaurants in the first place."
DotMomming:Picture book apps have come under recent criticism as just another toy to divert impatient kids. I think that is completely overlooking their value: How can picture book apps best be used in early literacy development? I like to see my six-year-old work his way through them on his own, as he deciphers the words solo and experiences the interactive surprises nestled into the book for himself. There is also a school of thought devoted to shared engagement between adult teacher and child learner. What is your take?
Patrick Cox: The author makes one of many assumptions people make about picture book apps and other forms of digital literature: once a child gets their hands on an electronic device, he or she will cease to engage with other human beings. This is another age-old argument. Similar moral panics have erupted in the past around books – that too much reading is bad for children, is somehow unnatural, cuts them off from “real” communication, and makes them lazy or “soft.”
The truth is, and I think most people know it, sometimes kids engage with books in interaction with parents, and sometimes kids engage with books on their own. What seems to be a difficult leap to make is that the same holds true for digital reading. The current “new thing” is digital reading in many different forms (many of which are enjoyed by adults), so the current moral panic is that the dreaded glowing screen is turning our children into zombies who don’t know how to communicate. It’s an easy, breezy topic for a magazine column or discussion board post.
But the question isn’t, “What are we to do in the face of this debilitating technology?” but rather, “How can we use it to enable our children (and us!) to communicate better?” Apps, like books, are merely tools, and we have more control over how we use them than they have power to control us. A recorded narrator’s voice needn’t eliminate parent interaction with a child while reading. Parent and child can enjoy together, can still talk about the text and images, a child can ask questions about the content of the app, a child can later relive the story through imaginative play. . . Indeed, a child can engage with an app alone, and an app can keep a child busy or quiet at a restaurant. . . which is also just like a book.
I think shared engagement is absolutely essential, not only for learning to read but for parent-child bonding! These technologies and formats are as new to me as they are to my four-year-old-son: we both saw a picture book app for the first time together! And we figured it out together – how to use it, what we like about it, what we don’t like about it, what we’ll use again. The new platform hasn’t kept us from engaging with one another while reading. It’s given us something else to utilize as we engage with one another.
This is the third in a series of dotMomming's conversation with Patrick Cox, who is teaching Children's Literacies, a course at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, about learning to read in the digital age. Patrick is a Ph.D. candidate in Rutger's childhood studies program.
DotMomming: The term "book" has become a loose thing as app developers include games and other whistles and bells with their digital stories. Often a parent wonders, "Is this a book? a game? a movie? all three?" What is your take on these new beasts?
Patrick Cox: I think it’s great to be prompted to such questions, and to hopefully conclude that books, games, and even movies needn’t be mutually exclusive. Perhaps it’s OK for reading to be fun. . . it always has been. Adding a few bells and whistles to reading is nothing new. John Newbery’s Pretty Little Pocketbooks are often mentioned as a starting point of children’s literature, at least as a marketed product. He published them in 1744, and they were accompanied with balls and pincushions. Children’s books and toys have always gone hand-in-hand.
One can argue that children’s literature has always crossed a line between “reading” and “playing” in such a way and to such a degree that should really force us to always consider fun, play, and even “gaming” as part of it. Digital enhancements are just the next development.
And the questions and concerns about digital reading are age-old as well. Nowadays, people can’t tell if the latest reading device is a toy or a book, but in the past, people have asked, “How can this be serious reading if the rhymes and rhythm are so bouncy? Won’t the colorful pictures distract from the reading? Aren’t these pop-up images just a little ‘too much’? Isn’t it enough to just read?” But the truth is, reading is supposed to be fun.
I think it’s also worth pointing out that there’s very little evidence to suggest that either:
No one is reading any more, or
No one is reading books anymore.
The presence of these new types of experiences with reading are not spelling the end of reading – to the contrary, I’d argue they enhance and encourage it! And to those who ask, “What’s wrong with just reading a book?” I’d reply: absolutely nothing, and the sales figures suggest that most people – especially young people – agree! These new creations really ought to be embraced for their ability to bring new people to reading and new experiences to reading, and not feared as some sort of enemy of literacy.
This is the second in a series of posts in which we'll hear from Patrick Cox, a Ph.D. candidate in the childhood studies program at Rutgers University. Patrick taught a summer course on learning to read in the digital age, and he will repeat it in the fall and spring. In exploring how digital readers are impacting early literacy development, Patrick is engaging his students in better understanding technology and how young children are learning about it and with it.
DotMomming: The digital natives born into the iPad world are experiencing reading and learning in a whole new way. I don't mean this as a plug for Apple, just in the sense that books are a fluid thing now. Kids can toddle over to the bookshelf to sit down with a paper book, or they can tap their fingers on a reading tablet and read a digital one. Is one experience better than the other?
Patrick Cox: Of course not! Certainly the experiences are different from each other, but it gets a bit sticky to ascribe words like “better” or “worse” to one experience over another. Apart from whatever text is being read in each medium, both media also teach valuable skills to young readers. “Book awareness” starts very young, and the book is itself a technology anyone in the United States really needs to learn how to use.
We don’t really think of it, but at some point we had to learn the difference between the cover of a book and the back of a book, or which direction to turn the pages, or that we read from left to right. These are all skills that are developed from a very young age and will serve us throughout our lives . . . unless books completely disappear, which I don’t think is likely at all.
Similarly, reading tablets and other hi-tech manifestations of books teach other useful skills we might call “tech awareness.” As unromantic as it sounds, these days we need to learn a connection between pushing buttons and things happening on a screen, or “swyping” a screen to move an image. In my state of Pennsylvania, naming and having some understanding of how to use computer parts like keyboards, a mouse, a touchpad, and a cell phone is part of the pre-kindergarten education standards. The fact is, like it or not, it behooves us all to learn how to use these new devices.
I’m very interested in this phrase “digital native.” I’ve heard it before and understand what is meant. But there’s an implication about it, it seems, that there’s something natural about kids’ connection to technology that people who aren’t “natives” can’t ever fully learn or become a part of. “Native” means some people are “not native,” so there’s a separation being made in the phrase between children and adults. “You grow up with it or you don’t; you’re a part of it, or you aren’t.” Children and adolescents have been classed as “separate” in different realms before. (There’s actually a book about teenagers called “A Tribe Apart,” another term that both primitivizes children and separates “them” from “us” – the presumably less primitive adults.)
I’ve heard children’s picture book apps on iPads described as perfect for young children because “kids these days are wired differently.” I think there’s a growing belief that children “just know this tech stuff” as if it’s not learned but natural to them, as if children are somehow at one with technology and its accompanying gadgets; “wired differently” as if part of the computer’s circuitry.
What’s troubling in all this is the perception that using reading tablets and other techie gadgets is somehow not reading. And that the gadgets – the digital books and apps and so forth – are cutting us off from “the natives.” We often hear a critique of e-readers along the lines of, “Yes, but it’s just not the same as curling up with a book and turning the pages.” People talk about the feel of paper, the smell of books. Indeed, a Kindle is not the same. But I’m not sure the difference is such as to affect a young reader’s comprehension or engagement with the story being read or their connection with the characters. In other words, reading hasn’t changed; just the device has changed. But that seems to be fraught with a lot of other meanings for people.
As we explore the role technology plays in early literacy development, we’re always on the lookout for cool happenings in the realm of kids books. Imagine our surprise when dotMomming stumbled across an undergraduate course being taught this summer at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, about learning to read in the digital age.
Titled simply Children’s Literacies, the coursework examines how literacy has expanded beyond the basics of reading and writing to include technological literacy as well. We reached out to Patrick Cox, who taught the summer course, is a Ph.D. candidate in the childhood studies program at Rutgers, and is clearly passionate about digital books and their effect on early literacy.
We'll devote the next many posts to exploring digital books and learning with Patrick.
DotMomming: Can you talk about the Rutgers course? Who was your audience? What were your topics? What did you hope to accomplish with the program?
Patrick Cox: The course is taught in the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers. Previously, the only children’s literature courses taught on this campus were offered through the English department, a discipline that takes a particular approach to literature. My department wanted some sort of children’s literature course that approached the literature in a Childhood Studies sort of way, which meant, first, it had to be a multi-disciplinary course, and second, it had to keep “the child” at the center of the study in some way.
So in a very important way this course is a children’s literature course that deliberately includes media other than books: e-readers, toys, CD-ROMs, websites, transmedia texts, cell phone novels, vooks [combination of books and videos] – we even looked into stories told through clues on T-shirts! People are really doing some amazing things with how they tell stories. And children’s and young adult literature is leading the way.
I wanted students to end the course with a greater awareness of and appreciation for some of these other forms. But we also read novels, short stories, picture books, comic books, graphic novels, because none of these things have been replaced; they’re part of children’s literacies too.
On another level, the course is about literacy itself: how it has developed, why it’s been taught, what has the spread of literacy meant for our culture, how has it been used as a “gatekeeper,” and what has it meant for those who have been left out. So my students also read about cognitive development as children learn to read, pedagogical approaches in classrooms, educational theory, ethnographies conducted in schools, scholarly work on incorporating popular culture into literacy instruction, and popular writing from newspapers and magazines to get a feel for the general cultural discourse and controversies around these new forms of literature. We also spent a good deal of time discussing the role of the marketplace in new literacies.
The course is open to any undergraduate student at Rutgers, and I hope those majoring in Childhood Studies find it fits with the rest of their courses: a one-of-a-kind course in a one-of-a-kind department. That to me is very important: it should be a course people can’t find anywhere but here.
I always hope for a certain number of students to come from the Teacher Prep program as well, to bring their expertise to the classroom and, hopefully, think in a different way about their role and approach as literacy instructors. Also, the undergraduate population is not a bunch of 18-year-olds anymore. Most of them are older (some quite a bit older), and half of my students have kids of their own.
I love teaching parents, as a parent myself, exchanging new ideas and materials and hoping they leave the course with an understanding that there are multiple forms of literacy, multiple ways to teach children to read, that literacy instruction these days begins at home and at a very young age, and that it’s OK to have fun while doing it. Also that not having the latest technological device will not doom your child to a life of illiteracy.
I’ll be teaching [Children’s Literacies] again this fall and then again in the spring. Enrollment for the fall session is already at capacity!
In getting to understand picture book apps, we've heard from app developers about what it takes to bring their ideas to market. But what about the author-artists themselves? What's it like to see your illustrations and stories come to life as a digitally animated book?
DotMomming reached out to Elizabeth O. Dulemba, author-illustrator of the darling picture book app Lula's Brew. Aside from illustrating over a dozen traditional books, she is the Illustrator Coordinator for the Southern region of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, an adjunct professor of illustration at the University of Georgia, and also sits on the board of the Georgia Center for the Book. And we cannot overlook this incredibly cool resume footnote: she created the laser show on the side of Georgia's Stone Mountain one summer (which I think I attended back in 1991 when I worked for a South Carolina newspaper).
DotMomming: You have a strong background in traditional books and art, but you've begun to dip your toes in the land of picture book apps. How's the water?
Elizabeth O. Dulemba: Interesting. I've always been a bit of a geek -- taught myself html, do my own website, illustrate digitally. So when e-books came along, of course I was intrigued. I love that we have this new media in which to share our stories, often in interactive new ways. It opens even more possibilities for storytelling.
DM:Lula's Brew is a gorgeously illustrated book. What is your creative process in making your art? And how does it look to you on the iPad, Nook, and other digital formats?
EOD: Thank you! I usually start with pencil sketches which I scan, arrange, and then color digitally (mostly in Photoshop). I'm thrilled by how Lula looks on these devices -- exactly as I intended, with light from behind. The viewer can see every brush stroke, every nuance of color. Fantastic!
DM: How does this compare to the paper books you've produced? Do you prefer one medium over the other?
EOD: I originally got into this business because I love books. Paper and cardboard and color. I will never lose my love for the turned page. So while I love digital formats, I will first and foremost always want to hold a finished book in my hands.
DM: Can you take a moment to talk about the production process with Lula's Brew? How long did it take you to go from "ah-ha" moment with the story idea to "wow" moment when you could download the app? How does this compare with traditional?
EOD:Lula's Brew had a tumultuous journey. I actually created the story and the dummy years before. One of the illustrations even won me a Grand Prize in the SmartWriters competition. And although it got close, the story was never picked up by a major publishing house. When apps came along, I searched my archives for something that I could adapt, and Lula was the one. It had received great feedback, was short, funny, the sketches were done...
But with a Halloween theme, I had a short window in which to complete it. That was two weeks of late nights, and then I sent my files to my app developer. I did a voice recording in a mock sound studio at his house, he put it all together and submitted to Apple. The app was live two weeks later - just before Halloween.
Traditional publishing is a completely different animal. I usually have months to a year to illustrate a book, and of course, I don't have to record a soundtrack. I'm also working under contract with a publisher. The app was on my own.
DM: As an illustrator of traditional books and now with app experience under your belt, could you speak in general terms about profit margins. For a picture book to be deemed a success, it needs to sell about 10,000 copies. Lula's Brew, which was released in April 2010 and retails for $2.99 in the App Store, has already marked more than 10,000 downloads. Despite the lower price, are your profit margins better than for your traditional paper books? Can you elaborate?
EOD:Lula's Brew has done remarkably well in downloads, however the profit margin is still nowhere near a traditional book contract. It's done better than I thought, but I currently wouldn't look to apps as a true money-making venture. Especially now that the field is growing so crowded. The advantage I had of having one of the first picture book apps out there is no longer, so marketing is yet again the grand beastie challenge.
DM: Could you take a moment to gaze into your crystal ball? What do you see as the future for picture books in five, ten years? Of course digital does not have to wipe out print -- as with movies, there's still room for big-screen film experiences along side video-watching at home. Do you see the market preferring one over the other?
EOD: I do think digital picture books will cut into the paper book market, however I don't see it replacing it. Nowhere close. Picture books are still a child's first foray into reading, into loving books, and I don't think parents will be eager to replace that experience with electronic devices. Yes, iPhones are great on the fly, but not as much at bedtime. And the prices of various devices are still too high to make them accessible to all families.
I see the two media working together over the next few years, giving our young ones so many options, they become bigger readers than ever. Doesn't that sound nice?
DM: A worry I have as the mother of young kids is that picture book apps can sometimes blur the lines between book and movie, or even book and game. What are your thoughts about young readers and their early literacy experiences with apps vs. traditional books?
EOD: I agree with your concern. I think it's important for parents to introduce books not only for reading, but as a concept. The world flies at us these days, and children need to know they can find refuge in a simple book, in a story that uses their mind as the interactive element.
DM: What's next for you? Are you illustrating more picture book apps? Are you writing them as well? What about traditional books? What do you hope to be doing three years from now?
EOD: I don't have any picture book apps in progress right now. In my opinion, it's not efficient from a budget standpoint to spend time on them from scratch. It's just too dicey as to whether or not they'll earn enough revenue. Truly, I think the best use of the media is to bring out-of-print picture books back to life -- giving them a new audience. Although, I am curious to see how Lula's Brew does as a Nook Book through Barnes & Noble. Maybe that will change my mind. It's still too new to tell.
I currently have a new picture book dummy being shopped by my agent to traditional publishing houses, as well as a middle-grade novel. In three years, I hope to have them published and be creating more!
Among the many interesting things about app-land is that businesses can pop up anywhere you can imagine: a loft in downtown Chicago, a yurt in outer Mongolia. When we read about Dublin-based Ideal Binary and their award-winning adaptations of Grimm's fairytales for the iPad and iPhone, we wanted to find out more about this Irish business (not to mention we have fantasies about moving to the old sod someday). So we contacted Aidan Doolan, who started Ideal Binary with his twin brother, Kevin Doolan.
DotMomming: Who is Ideal Binary and why did you decide to enter the app business? Do you produce books for kids exclusively? Or are you game developers as well? Why Dublin?
Aidan Doolan: Ideal Binary was founded by my twin brother and me in 2008. We were born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and that's where we live with our wives and families. Location isn't so much of a barrier to doing business globally any more.
We have a long background in the games industry, and have worked on many games titles for companies like Sony, Disney, Konami, and others in the past, and our chairman, Barry O'Neill, also brings extensive commercial experience to the business from companies like Bandai Namco.
We decided to enter the app business because we could see an opportunity to create something no one else had created before - and we set about building the technology platform PopIris to allow us to realise this goal. Our experience in the games industry building high-performance 3D graphics engines and 3D physics engines, along with our experience as artists and animators, has given us a technological advantage over others in this space.
We are currently focused on family-friendly book apps, and we see this as continuing to be the focus of the business - but as we grow we'll expand our products, targeting into different family interest areas aimed at a wider age base.
DM: The picture book app market has changed dramatically since you entered the scene in 2010 with Grimm's Rumpelstiltskin. While there were just a handful of app producers then, it's a very different ballgame now. More and even bigger publishing houses are putting books out there now (Scholastic and other heavyweights). How can a small house like Ideal Binary compete?
AD: It's true, there seems to be an ever growing gold rush with numerous small and large book app producers entering the market every day. Survival rates are very low, however, with many of these (even some of the large ones) under-performing or even generating losses for their publishers. All of our apps so far have been highly profitable. One of the reasons for this is that we focus on producing unique, high-quality book apps that provide a significant wow factor. It's the wow factor that gets people talking about our apps. This helps us tackle the problem of app discovery to a large degree, and it means we have a competitive advantage. Our technology allows us deliver the "wow factor" at a reasonable production cost.
DM: How do you reach parents about your books? When I slog through the App Store, I have a hard time deciding on what books to consider for my kids. Do you have suggestions for weary parents trying to connect their kids to quality picture book apps?
AD: Thankfully, we have built a very large satisfied customer base for our interactive book apps. When we release a new product, we are able to get the word our very quickly to an audience that knows and trusts our work.
The problem of app discovery for parents is a difficult one. First and foremost, I would recommend that parents talk to their friends about what book apps have impressed them. There are also numerous review sites and blogs, such as this one, that offer good information. This will help provide parents with all the information they need to make good, informed decisions about which kids book apps to purchase and which ones to avoid.
DM: When I was reading your apps with my kids, I was pleased to see my 6-year-old taking his time with the text pages in between the pop-up activity pages. I thought it was a great balance and was pleased that I didn't have to compete with his little fingers tap-tap-tapping on clouds and stars, etc., when he was supposed to be reading. Can you talk about what goes into your decision-making in producing books. How do you strike a balance between whistles and bells vs. literary content?
AD: Above all, the most important component of any kids book app is the story, and the entertainment and educational value that can be drawn from it. We only add interactivity at key points in the story where there is an opportunity to weave the reader into the story itself. We avoid adding bells and whistles interactivity to the text pages because it simply distracts the reader from the story. There are exceptions to this, of course. You may see some examples of this in our upcoming book apps. Again, the interactivity is only added where it can enhance and not distract from the story. We see a lot of apps that try to achieve too much onscreen and overwhelm the user. Design of these aspects is key.
The interactivity we add to the pop-up scenes is largely drawn from experience with my own kids. For example, my youngest daughter initially had problems carrying out lists of instructions in the correct order. To help her with this, my wife and I would walk her through simple tasks and get her to repeat them. One task was to first plant some flower seeds and only then water them to help them grow. This of course became the first pop-up scene in Grimm's Rapunzel. After she completed a task correctly, we praised her to help positively reinforce what she had learned. She no longer has any problems with sequencing. This is how we try to present all of the interactivity in our kids book apps.
DM: The lines between "book" apps and games and movies are blurring. What is your take on picture book apps and early literacy? What do you see as the impact these new beasts will have on kids who are born into an iPad world?
AD: While we see a degree of crossover between the different mediums, in reality there's less blurring of the boundaries than some might believe. In the mid-1990s when CD-ROMs started to take off, the media started talking about exactly the same thing. It was forecast that games and movies in particular would merge. Actors like Mark Hammel started lending their talent to game/movie hybrids like the Wing Commander series. Yet here we are almost two decades later, and movies are still movies and games are still games.
We do believe there is a revolution taking place right now with book apps, and that's what we're trying to take the lead on. People (and kids in particular) learn most when they are immersed in engaging experiences they can enjoy. You've heard the Confucius quote, "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." The same is true of learning. If you can find a learning experience that isn't a chore for your child, they stand to learn so much more from it without feeling like it's a boring process. It's these kinds of experiences that we try to embody in our interactive children's books. These experiences can enhance skills like literacy (for more than one language), sequencing, understanding the benefits of a healthy diet, obedience, and kindness.
The impact of this type of learning on children will ultimately mean they can acquire these skills sooner. That means they have the potential for a richer, healthier life. As a parent, that means a lot to me, as I'm sure it does to most parents.
DM: You've made a splash with your pop-up Grimm books, which also include Red Riding Hood. What's ahead? Will you continue to put your own spin on classic fairy tales? Or do you plan to take on new authors and original stories? Do you feel that there is money to be made off new talent -- there is risk involved there in taking on unknowns -- is it worth your time and money?
AD: We're delighted with the success of our book apps so far, and we'll be accelerating our development and publishing outputs. We plan on continuing the Grimm's series. We have the next book app well under way, and we're very excited about this one. We also have a second line of book apps under way which focus more on early learning. We plan to continue innovating with new approaches to engaging our growing audience. We'll also be enhancing our technology with new interactive features with each new book release.
We will likely be partnering with established brand holders at some point in the future. We're not opposed to working with new authors, but as you say, the risks are higher with unproven brands and stories.
DM: What's the biggest lesson learned so far in the past year of this rapidly changing business?
AD: The biggest lesson we've learned so far is the realisation that to succeed in this market, a fine balance needs to be struck between features and production efforts and costs. Too many people have entered the book app market dreaming of Angry Birds style success and have over invested in products that have underperformed. There are 58,000 apps in the Books category vs. 73,000 in Games. But Games represents more than 60 percent of app downloads, whereas Books is probably less than 5 percent. That's a massively competitive environment, and you need to scale your efforts and expectations accordingly. We're happy that the approach we're taking to interactive kid's books works and is proving highly profitable even with that huge amount of growing competition in this space.
DM: What's your biggest goal for the next year?
AD: Our biggest goal for the next year is to scale our business while continuing to innovate. We've had a wonderful time making our interactive kids books, and we're very excited about the road ahead. We hope our customers are too.
