Editor’s note: Customers from all over the world outsource their web development and mobile development needs to our team of graphic designers and programmers. We create all kinds of websites and mobile apps. It may sound funny but we strongly believe that mobile apps designed for little children belong to the category of the most useful digital products as they have a great potential for educational entertainment and make education a fun and welcomed activity. In the following article I’d like to talk about mobile children’s book applications, book-dedicated websites and their benefits for both kids and authors.
Books are one of the most important educational assets ever invented by humanity. Children’s literature is an indispensable tool for building literacy which serves as a solid foundation for bringing up a well-rounded personality. In fact children’s books play a much bigger and serious role in our society that someone might think. According to statistics, people that had an insufficient access to books in early childhood are more likely to be involved in crime. The States of California once planned how many jail cells to build by how many children were not reading on the grade level by fourth grade. Low income families where books are far from been priority have much lower chances for their kids’ successful education and career. Only 2% of children with low literacy complete a four-year college program.
If I were a politician I would seriously think about making free children’s book a compulsory part of low income benefits. I believe a set of free children’s books is more than acceptable price for a chance to decrease juvenile crime, at least for a bit, and protect our society.
Loving parents across the globe will never stop investing in their children’s education through books. Since investing in own kids’ education is one of the best and wise investments one can make, there will never be a lack of demand for children’s literature and all kinds of educational stuff.
These are good news for book authors as well. Even the simplest books for babies and toddlers often have better chances for a financial success than long and elaborated novels targeting adult readers. The second essential key to success for children’s books, besides the story, is the visual content. That’s why illustrators play a big role in creating popular books for kids. However rapid technology developments have brought new forms of visual content as well as new opportunities of delivering information to children.
Today’s new technologies are penetrating every sphere of our lives. If less than a century ago books were one of only a few affordable sources of education and entertainment (I’d rather call it educational entertainment) for the majority of kids, lots of modern world children have a daily access to hundreds or even thousands of TV shows, movies, websites, mobile interactive books and apps specially designed for little ones and stored in a small-sized device. Well, yes tablets and mobile phones with hundreds of thousands of free and cheap apps present a huge competition for children’s book authors today. But lots of wise authors can actually tap into the growing diversity of educational and entertainments channels available for children. Children’s authors can leverage modern information technology advances both for marketing their books and supplementing them with new exciting possibilities our digital era can offer. I am talking about websites and mobile book applications and other kids of digital interactive content for children.
More and more children’s book authors, parents and teachers are discovering the benefits of new technologies in education and entertainment. Traditional books and text-books are already not enough for kids as long as there is a colorful and interactive audiovisual content. It’s hard for traditional illustrations, as good as they can be, to compete with moving images, talking characters, augmented reality and interactive games of the new digital era. Mobile and web-based applications offer unsurpassed video and audio enhancements that can’t be missed by modern kids.
However too much visualization can constitute a problem that often causes the lack of kids’ reading skills and reluctance to read. Who would want to read if there are movies, cartoons and games all around modern children? However mobile applications have all the chances to create a unique combination of traditional books and advanced entertainment technology that will stimulate love for reading from early childhood.
Interactivity, playability, enhanced visual and audio effects are not the only benefits of digital books, mobile apps and websites. One of the greatest things about mobile interactive book applications is that they are in fact software which means they are paperless. Creating digital products like mobile apps does not require any physical material. It means that you however much you spend for having an app built you can sell the application for as cheap as $1 or ask for a tiny monthly subscription fee and still have profit at the end.
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| "The Cat in the Hat" is a good example of a profitable mobile app based on the children's book |
There is a great example of a successful children’s book mobile app that inspired me to write this post. The app is based on Dr. Seuss'“Cat in the Hat” book. The app was created for both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. It costs as little as $1. Google Play shows some approximate installation statistics and we can get an idea of how much the app owner earns from selling it. The statistics say the “Cat in the Hat” application was installed 50,000 - 100,000 times. Taking into account that the company producing this application has quite a number of other popular interactive book apps I can imagine they make good money with this kind of digital era children’s entertainment.
Well, yes, a complicated mobile app that involves gaming and other top-notch features may cost you a fortune. Aspiring children’s book authors approaching a mobile app development team about an application to complement their books usually get really unhappy with the cost of development because apps that suggest lots of illustrations, animation, interactivity and complicated programming to make everything function properly may require hundreds of work hours and hence cost tens of thousands of dollars. A great and affordable children’s application can pay-off tenfold but independent authors who are just starting their career simply have no money to pay for app development. Well, I believe that the best way for writers with modest personal funds to have an application developed is to start with a simpler version of their application and/or outsource their mobile app development project to an off-shore team like QuartSoft. By starting with a simpler app one can estimate its potential and profitability without having to spend too much money before further app development iterations.
However full-featured children’s book applications and interactive websites dedicated to books can be effective attention and profit boosters for publishing houses because a free or cheap application coming with the book is in fact a very effective marketing tool. And this tool works both ways: information about a free application placed on the physical book cover makes the book more attractive for buyers at a bookstore and at the same time a free application downloaded through Apple Store or Google Play works as a bait to make parents and children want to purchase the traditional book the application is based on. Having enough funds, children’s book publishers can afford development of absolutely amazing applications for kids that will give them quite a number of opportunities to promote not only the products but also the publishing house brand.
Children’s products manufactures have created a huge business around our kids. When it comes to a multi-billion dollar business the competition is fierce and following new trends can make the difference between success and failure. Mobile children’s book apps belong to one of those new trends such businesses could tap into. Luckily there are quite a few great royalty free children's books out there. Any company selling kids’ stuff can make the use of popular children’s classics to turn them into colorful interactive mobile apps. Alternatively businesses could cooperate with modern writers in creating apps based on their books. Even by giving such apps away for free a business can gain a better brand awareness, trust and likeability through in-app advertising. This can be a great marketing strategy for all kinds of companies targeting kids and parents such as manufacturers of toys, children’s food, healthcare products etc.