Press

December, 2011

PicPocket Books is featured in the December, 2011 issue of The Social Media Monthly, in the stands at Barnes & Noble in December.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October, 2011

PicPocket Books is mentioned in the Special App Issue of Wired Magazine, in an article on “Apps in the Classroom.”

 

May 24, 2011

PicPocket Books and Moms With Apps participate in the Association for Competitive Technology fly-in and meet with Congress on the topics of small tech businesses, mobile apps, and COPPA. Read the MomsWithApps summary here.

MomsWithApps in Washington, D.C.

March 27, 2011

Lynette Mattke of PicPocket Books and MomsWithApps participated as a panel speaker in the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference on the eve of the International Children’s Book fair in Bologna, Italy. The panel topic was “Digital Sales and Marketing Channels,” one of many informative sessions of the conference.

Publisher’s Weekly summarizes the keynotes and sessions:

From O’Reilly Media’s Joe Wikert’s opening remarks saying “it’s all about storytelling” to Mondadori’s Laura Donnini ending comment of “We sell dreams,” content was the word participants kept coming back to at the inaugural Tools of Change Bologna, the day before the opening of the Bologna Book Fair. A sellout crowd of 250, from 27 countries, attended the day-long program on Sunday, March 27.

Many of the same conversations from recent DBW and TOC conferences surfaced throughout the day, from ePub to HMTL5, digital rights complexities, discoverability, price pressures, and DRM as protection vs. sales deterrent. The importance of social networking came up in several talks as well; Moms with Apps co-founder Lynette Mattke called it “the driving force in connecting with your audience.” And Lasse Korsemann Horne of Gyldendal in Denmark gave the digital world a new phrase when referring to apps that introduce the concept of the book to “Generation Angry Birds.”
Morning keynote speaker Kate Wilson of Nosy Crow reminded attendees that the shift to digital has given publishers new opportunities “to connect directly with consumers cheaply and efficiently.” Citing statistics of how many four- and five-year-olds are online in the U.K.–saying that 14% of them can tie their shoes but 34% can open a browser–she emphasized, “This is where your customers are.”
Looking toward the future, amid accelerating change and an ongoing economic squeeze, she expressed concern that the “downward pressure on price would have an impact on creative investment and experimentation.” But she encouraged audience members to take the leap: “If you haven’t already, go and open the door.”
Scholastic’s Deborah Forte, on the morning’s Going Digital panel, advocated for publishers moving to “a push model rather than a pull model” for distribution. “Kids will have a lot more say in getting their books,” she predicted. “Instead of a distribution system where everyone is going in a bookstore to buy a book, it will be a consumer-centric system. We need to recognize that the customer is in charge. And companies need to rethink their marketing strategies.”
She cautioned against rushing to publish apps as a reaction to the marketplace. “You need to ask: how do they connect you to your audience?” If a book is being translated to a screen, “What is making that experience better?”
Lyle Underkoffer, v-p of digital media at Disney Publishing, spoke of an opportunity that going digital provides: “You can change prices easily; it gives you the ability to test prices. It’s not about making better margins, it’s about providing a better consumer experience.”
Moderator Joe Wikert shared an internal O’Reilly mantra when he advised publishers to “fail forward fast,” and come up with a minimum viable product to get into the game, and warned against initial overinvestment. Underkoffer added another cautionary note, saying, “Overproducing can lead to bigger potholes.” Though he said that now is a time for experimentation, he added that it’s difficult to be at the forefront at a time of great change. “The second-mover strategy is not always the worst.”
The Four-Letter Word of Digital
Free vs. lite vs. paid was a topic for discussion at Wikert’s panel. Calling free “a four-letter word,” Underkoffer said free is “very slippery,” and can create expectations of a lifetime. At Disney, “we don’t want to train the consumer that they can get Disney content for free.” To HarperCollins U.K.’s Tom Conway, “free” is more about “lite.” “A lite version of one of our top apps,” he said, “has been key to its success. People can sample its richness” and delve deep enough into it to see that it’s worth the price. In a later session, Brian O’Reilly of Magellan Partners pointed out that if you don’t give people an opportunity to sample, “you run the risk of losing readers.” But as Conway reported, experimenting with an app being completely free didn’t boost sales after the app’s shift to paid.
Though Apple has a huge headstart in terms of both product and distribution, several speakers throughout the day discussed the opportunities that are emerging with new platforms, including Chrome OS, HP WebOS, and perhaps the most promising, Android.
Kevin O’Connor, director of children’s content for Barnes & Noble, who gave a demo of Nook Kids, said that B&N will be launching an app store in April. In a few weeks they’ll announce some enhanced features to their proprietary children’s book format, which he described as “light motion graphics.” Speaking to the notion that you can create a comprehensive inventory much quicker in children’s than you can in adult, he said, “If you have 10,000 titles, you would have every single title that has sold significantly in the last few years.”
In the Digital Sales and Marketing Channels session, Lynette Mattke stated that it’s not enough to just develop an app and put it in the App Store. “Platforms will be changing, and that app will need constant attention and updates.” Fellow panelist Josh Koppel of ScrollMotion called that “the most important point anyone’s made today. In order to keep that app successful, it’s a long-term investment.” And moderator Joe Schick of Baker & Taylor added, “If a book is a product, an app is a service.”

July 29, 2010 Huffington Post: iPhone Apps by Moms, for Moms Never underestimate a mom with an iPhone. While most mobile developers are men, a growing number of opportunistic women are venturing into app development to create apps catered to other women. And many of these women are part of a group called Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers who share best practices on making and marketing mobile apps. Below, see BabyMedBasics, published by PicPocket Books.

BabyMedBasics published by PicPocket Books

July 20, 2010 Fox5 News: There’s an App for Families Who Love to Read Lynette Mattke, Publisher of picpocketbooks.com, shows FOX 5 families how they can take advantage of the opportunity to read together by using new apps. Fox News highlights PicPocket Books, the iPad and Moms With Apps.

Watch the Fox5 segment here. July 16, 2010 The Washington Post: Building Apps for Children PicPocket Books gets center stage in the Washington Post in an article about kids and media. Publisher Lynette Mattke is recognized as a co-founder of Moms With Apps – a cooperative group of 100+ Moms (and some Dads) creating family-friendly content in app form. Read the full article in the Capital Business section of The Post.

November 2009

PicPocket Books Announces Four New Picture Book Apps for iPhone/iPod Touch, Largest Publisher in Growing E-Book Market for Children’s Books

Titles, publishers include What a Pest (Grosset and Dunlap), I Can Do it Too (Chronicle Books) Then it Rained (Gumboot Books) and We’ll Paint the Octopus Red (Woodbine House)

PicPocket Books, a custom application software development company dedicated to bringing children’s books to life on the iPhone, today introduced four new titles for PicPocket Books, making PicPocket Books the largest publisher of children’s picture book applications for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

What A Pest, by Maryann Cocca-Leffler, originally published by Grosset & Dunlap as a Level 1 All Aboard Reader, I Can Do It Too! by Karen Baicker from Chronicle Books, Then It Rained by Crystal Stranaghan from Gumboot Books and We’ll Paint the Octopus Red by Stephanie Stuve- Bodeen from Woodbine House are the newest titles published by PicPocketBooks for the Apple iTunes App Store.

PicPocket Books (www.picpocketbooks.com) brings quality picture book literature to digital media. Children ages 2-8 can now enjoy their favorite stories on the go—at the doctor!s office, at the store, on the airplane; any situation where it’s impractical to bring physical books along. PicPocket Books offer a new and unique experience, combining the beauty and distinctive quality of picture books with professionally produced audio narrations and interactive visual text.

“We don’t see PicPocket Books as replacements for print books or the valuable time parents can spend reading to their children, but as educational and culturally valuable alternatives to video games or movies, especially for families on-the-go,” says Lynette Mattke, Co-founder and Publisher of PicPocket Books. “We publish titles as true-to-the-book as possible, using full-color illustrations, professionally recorded audio and interactive highlighting of words as the story is read. We encourage early literacy and instilling an early love of books and reading in children.”

Current PicPocket Books titles available on the Apple iTunes App Store include:

  • My Friend Isabelle by Eliza Woloson, illustrated by Bryan Gough
  • Cucumber Soup by Vickie Leigh Krudwig, Illustrated by Craig McFarland Brown
  • Tire Mountain by Andrea Cheng, illustrated by Ken Condon
  • Sleeping Beauty illustrated by by Martina Müller
  • A My Name is Andrew, by Mary McManus Burke, illustrated by Donna Ingemanson; and
  • 8 Big Stuff Books by Robert Gould and Eugene Epstein, including titles such as Dinosaurs,
  • Big Rigs, Monster Trucks, Sea Creatures and Rescue Vehicles

Whereas other iPhone picture book applications are video-based, automatically flipping the pages of the book while the child follows along, PicPocket Books technology allows users to turn pages and highlight words themselves, mimicking a true book experience.

“Many families are short on time and e-books can be read any time, any place,” says Mattke. “We believe that if reading picture books on the iPhone means that more families are reading together and that more kids have more exposure to storybooks, then they are a great option for the tech- savvy families of today.”

About PicPocket Books

PicPocket Books, established in the spring of 2009, is founded by husband-wife team Lynette and Manuel Mattke who share a passion for children’s literature and technological innovation. To download any of the PicPocket Books apps, please visit the iTunes App Store. For more information about PicPocket Books, please visit http://www.picpocketbooks.com

Contact: Lynette Mattke

Co-founder & Publisher, PicPocket Books

109 Granville Drive

Silver Spring, MD 20901

[email protected]

Twitter @picpocketbooks

http://www.picpocketbooks.com