For over sixty years, Scholastic book clubs have been providing cost-effective editions of the most popular children’s, middle grade, and young adult novels and reference titles to school children. Through its in-house publishing division, classroom materials selection, and age- and interest specific book clubs, it has become a mainstay of juvenile reading content in the industry.
Now, Scholastic has built upon its existing partnership with Sourcebooks to produce the same high-quality content for readers spanning every ability level and interest range through its digital reach. Sourcebooks is already a print publishing partner to Scholastic, and both sides are eager for the e-reading expansion, expected to launch later this fall.
Judy Newman, president of Scholastic Book Clubs and eCommerce, spoke to GoodEReader.com in an interview this week about the potential for this development.
“Scholastic has a long history of providing book club materials in print and now this means we can provide that same excellent content in ebook form. This robust partnership gets even more books into classrooms. It’s exciting that we can continue working with Sourcebooks because Dominique Raccah, the CEO at Sourcebooks, is so in tune with digital media. Our partnership is thrilling because of her knowledge and experience with digital content.”
A press release issued earlier this week explained both parties’ involvement in bringing more current front list and previous back list titles to students through this ereading collaboration:
“Scholastic is leading the way in creating a true interactive digital reading experience for children that adds excitement about reading with special features that can only be offered in an electronic format,” said Dominique Raccah, CEO and Publisher of Sourcebooks. “The partnership between Scholastic and educators has been a strong catalyst in inspiring new generations of book lovers, and we are thrilled to be a part of this effort to provide teachers and parents with an incredible new tool to meet kids where they are on the electronic devices they love and make reading even more fun.”
“We have an open channel to readers of all ages because of our book clubs, book fairs, and classroom teachers,” explains Newman when asked how Scholastic plans to incorporate digital reading with its already successful print outlet.
One advantage Scholastic has going into the launch of its new e-reader application is its vast experience with producing high-quality and widely popular titles for a broad demographic of readers, from those in preschool all the way through the exploding young adult ebook market. While many e-reading platforms aimed at the children’s market focus solely on the younger reader content found in many interactive book apps, an unrivaled understanding of the children’s book market and the technological know-how to market ebooks for a variety of devices and ages will both have a great deal to do with the expected success of Scholastic’s electronic reading application.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
