As a lover of children’s books, I was pleased to find that there were three panels on day two of Digital Book World devoted to this segment of the marketplace. So, once my volunteering duties at the coat check were over, I made a beeline for the first kids’ book panel of the day. (As my fellow NYU Publishing student Thea James noted in her post about day one, hanging up wet and snowy coats wasn’t a bad trade off for the chance to sit in on a conference where registration costs upwards of one thousand dollars!)
Kristen McLean of the Association of Booksellers for Children moderated a presentation of findings from the 2010 ABC/Bowker Pubtrack Consumer Study: Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer in the Digital Age. The study provided many insights into the children’s market and debunked two prevailing myths surrounding teenagers. The first myth is that teenagers are universal adopters of technology and a ready-made market for ebooks. In fact, the study demonstrated that no segment in the teen market shows significant ebook sales (5-6% average adoption compared to about 30% in adult trade). The panelists attributed this to the fact that teenagers tend to adopt technologies that are sharing in nature like texting and social networking. Ebooks with limited sharing capabilities are actually less social than print books, which are readily passed around friendship circles or classrooms. Furthermore, many teens still don’t have access to e-readers, and because not all have credit cards, they rarely shop online for books. [Read more…] about Digital Book World Day Two: Catering to Kids