Publishing products (books, periodicals and calendars) represent the third strongest product category (after clothing and toys) in terms of licensed themes, accounting for 12 per cent of the overall licensing business – and growing. Conversely, films, TV shows, brands and celebrity publishers offer marketing possibilities for successful titles. It’s hard not to be impressed by the plethora of books, calendars and magazines from licensing success stories like Star Wars, Sesame Street, Hello Kitty or Jamie Oliver. Locally, the fine examples are Upin & Ipin as well as BoiBoi Boy.

I went on a Licensing & Merchandising Tour around the book fair to learn more about it. Meeting point was at StoryDrive Info Desk, Media & Entertainment Area, Hall 4.0.

So what is licensing and merchandising? Simply put, licensing is a permission to use, distribute or sell a brand that belonging to a brand owner for a defined period of time, in a defined territory. I had few of my illustrations licensed in this manner, i.e. Hush Puppies Malaysia Hari Raya poster and few others. For Hush Puppies Raya poster, I granted a permission to use and distribute the artwork in Malaysia and Singapore for a fee.

As for merchandising, brand owner extends its brand to be produced, distribute or sold in a form of merchandising items. The agreement can be made where brand owners gets to earn royalties on the sale of that product or service. For example, if the company that manages Hush Puppies Malaysia like to extend the permission to develop my characters in the poster and sell it, this is what we call merchandising.

Licensing and Merchandising is a great way for a brand to stand out amongst the competition. Licensing and Merchandising enhances brand image and allow consumer to exhibit their love of the brand. It also generates income for the brand owner while attracts new consumers to the brand.

One of the booths we visited was Nickelodeon, the number-one entertainment brand for kids. The company does television programming and production around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, and feature films. Nickelodeon Consumer Products manages brands like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer as well as manages merchandising for Nick Jr, Nickelodeon among others.

Nickelodeon reprentative explaning to us about the licensing and merchandising businnes of the company.

We visited few other booths including Dummies and Oetinger.

Dummies booth.

Oetinger booth.

The basic line is; we must have an established core products like books or movies/tv series before planning to go into licensing and merchandising business.

So, the number one thing that I have to come out with is a permanent character.  So…I am going to develop the girl character that I always love todraw; the one with braided hair and stripey pants. Her name will be Diya. So watch out for Diya! Or maybe Diya and Friends! I remember being approached by two companies about getting my characters into movie but I didn’t have a strong  character back then.

Hehe, give me a year to develop her slowly 🙂

Finally, I am here at the Frankfurt Book Fair, thanks to Malaysia Airlines for sponsoring my return flight tickets. I wouldn’t have made it here without the sponsorship.

I really wanted to come here because I want to:
1. get my illustrations to be licensed, if possible,
2. find inspiration,
3. get to know more about licensing,
4. do some research on what makes a children’s book a success and
5. get to know people in the book industry, specifically those behind children’s books category.

For few days I went around the Book Fair with Linda and Jaen to look at books and booths and to find potential publishers to publish my illustrations as merchandise items or books. We gave out some samples to interested publishers; some show interest, some not. But I am just happy, even if they are not interested, I have the pleasure of promoting my work at international level.  Linda and Jaen will help me follow up later. Deals don’t come easy, it might take years. Or it might not conclude at all. I am all prepared.

Anyway, Mr Raman, the owner of Silverfish Books is here too and he is happy to carry my brand and promote it in his shop. Yay.

Beside getting deals, I already have some projects cooking after serious discussion with Linda and Jaen. We are building up a character and will make series of books out if it. Linda suggested that I build up my ‘Diya’ character and Jaen has already outlines some topics that I can write about. Apart from this, Linda wants me to illustrate for some books that she had bought (publishing and translation rights) at the book fair.

And oh, I still have a book to color; My Mother’s Kitchen (previously known as My Father’s Kitchen). After discussing with Linda and Mr .Raman, we decided to change it to mother because children have always associated ‘kitchen’ with ‘mother’.

Here are some random pictures from the book fair: