Hello,
The site looks nice and organised with lots of friendly people around.
I have been working on a media package for children recently and now I’m nearing completion of the first stage. The second stage is to find financial backing to complete the project. The package consists of: A children’s fairy story, thirty five thousand words and may be illustrated or not, colour illustrations exist. A 3D colour animation, episode one with voice over and effects which is the animated version of the fairy story, chapter one. Finally, with the principal characters from the fairy story and animation, an interactive, animated educational application designed to introduce preschool children to English grammar. I have prepared a seven minute proof of concept animation with a pdf document explaining the applications use. The package is designed to be viewed on all multimedia devices, the fairy story may also be published independently in book form with or without illustrations.
The second stage will surely be even more demanding than the first stage, so any help from forum members will really be appreciated.

R&R

You would really need to approach a publisher, as this is the sort of thing their marketting department would handle.
Alternatively there are 'book packagers' (a little different to an agent, but don't ask me in what way) who might be interested, and would tout it round the publishers.
Good luck,

NaomiM

Thank you for that,I did a quick Google on "Book packagers" and will try that route,Here's the link just in case someone else is interested,
http://www.underdown.org/packaging.htm

Thanks again

R&R

Wow - you've been working hard on this package! Well done.

I do have a slight query - pre-school children don't really learn English grammar; they are focusing on learning sounds. And thirty-five thousand words is long for a fairy-tale aimed at pre-schoolers. It's more usually like 500 words!

Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick - I realise the pre-school bit might be completely separate, but if you're going to market it, you need to be very clear about what's what, and whom the package is aimed at.

Yes, like Freebird I'm a bit confused about what age you're marketing this to? The word count and grammar element sounds more like keystage 2, not pre-school (which is usually much shorter books about things like learning-to-read/count)

Also I'm slightly unclear about how you are planning to approach this - are you looking for a publisher to take on the book, and then self-fund the animation and the app? Or are you self-funding all aspects?

You might find a publisher who would look at the book and the app, but I don't know of any publishers who would also produce in-house animations. The normal route would be either to have a successful book which is then sold to a TV company for animation, or to have a successful animation which is then merchandised in the form of books. An app could apply to either but it's quite rare to have a project start up simultaneously on three platforms - purely because of the level of investment required.

<Added>

sorry - that sounded rather brusque! I meant to add - good luck!

No apologies require and thanks for your input, actually I should have written Middle grade age 8-12. : Understanding Children’s book genres, Laura Backes. http://www.right-writing.com/genres.html.
The learning tool does indeed deal with sounds and pronunciation; in fact it’s all about that as one of its functions is to help children with learning difficulties, or children with only a basic knowledge of the English language who want to improve their pronunciation. I’ve only dealt with very basic grammar in the starter pack, with several advanced upgrades available depending upon the child’s age, and level of comprehension. As I mentioned, it’s a concept and completely flexible. Initially, I could attempt to sell the book, but I prefer to market it as a package as it’s designed to work on all media devices. Service providers would be one obvious choice but I’m looking for options that would allow me at least some control over the final outcome.

R&R

If you're talking of Middle Grade then I assume you're based in the US. I'm not familiar with US publishing houses that specialise in books for reluctant readers, but in the UK it's Barrington Stoke.


- NaomiM

As to a precise approach, well to be honest, right now, I don’t have one. What I do have are several options: One would be to approach television production companies with the animation, or to find a literary agent with the book and an option to the animation, or to find a service provider (Vodafone etc} who might be interested in the whole, as a multi-media package. They seem to have the capital resources right now. Self financing would be out of the question! The animation, and its only episode one, which runs for 7 minutes, took me sixteen months to make, it’s really great quality and I’m pleased with it but to make episodes two, three and four would take another thirty five months to complete, unless I had the capital with three more animators, I could produce it in fifteen months. I agree that to have: a project starts up simultaneously on three platforms. Is rare but it could be interesting simply because of, after all the ground work has been done and the script or I should say story has been written.

R&R

You could try pitching it to Nickelodeon -
http://nick.co.uk/

Hi,
Thanks for the information,actually I'm based in the good old UK.

R&R

Hi,
Working on the pitch pakage now,thanks

R&R