El-Hi Any Which
Way
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (OCTOBER 2003)
As
the world of higher education continues to grapple with
distance learning and its effect upon educational publishers
(see article), textbook
publishers, while sizing up the online onslaught, are
protecting their flanks with a variety of forays into
the consumer market at the elementary and high-school
levels:
•
Dan Farley, President of Harcourt Trade,
is working to bring the content of the various subsidiaries
of Harcourt Education to the consumer market. One of
the first fruits of this initiative is a deal with Barnes
& Noble Publishing’s Sparknotes to
repurpose some of Steck-Vaughn’s educational
material for the consumer market. It will create a series
of workbooks that will be published by Sparknotes’ younger
sibling, Flashkids (aimed at the K-8 age group),
beginning in June 2004. Sparknotes is “refreshing and
augmenting” S-V’s material and will sell it exclusively
through Barnes & Noble.
•
Riverdeep Inc., which is one of the largest educational
software producers (it owns Edmark, Broderbund,
and Learning Company), recently launched
Learning Company Books, which will publish and
distribute (through CDS) workbooks based on their
successful Reader Rabbit software and ClueFinders
program. Vivian Antonangeli, who had been
Publisher of Reader’s Digest Children’s Books,
is its Director of Retail Sales.
•
When McGraw-Hill bought Tribune Education,
they lost no time in using its assets — including licenses
and authors — to develop workbooks and activity books.
Vince Douglas, who had been co-founder of Landoll,
took over as President of the renamed McGraw-Hill Children’s
Publishing, which nevertheless remains a tiny part of
McGraw-Hill Education’s $2.35 billion empire.
•
Pearson’s Marjorie Scardino bought Dorling
Kindersley with one objective of repurposing its
photo and art archive for its education market. But
Pearson has moved into the edutainment market, with
Family Education Network, a website that combines
educational materials with consumer offerings, and traditional
books with downloadable POD titles.
©2003
Publishing Trends
