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Hello everyone!
I'm really pleased to be introducing our first RAISING OUR GAME electronic newsletter, which full of our news, and of the things you chose to tell us all about what you are doing.
We held back from issuing it because we wanted to be able to include news about our acquisition of tie-in publishing rights for The Golden Compass film, which is based on our very own Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. We're running a few days later than we initially planned, but the news is worth waiting for.
Kate Wilson
Our financial year to end September shows a big improvement on last year: overall, our sales are up by £577,000 on the same time last year, and our OI (our Operating Income or profit/loss) is better by £562,000. We are still, though, behind budget for the year, with sales down £621,000 on budget, and OI down £120,000.
Clubs and Fairs have had a tougher start to the year than our publishing businesses. Clubs are most significantly behind budget and prior year in sales terms, though our International Club continues to grow well. Despite this, Clubs OI is pretty similar to this time last year, but is behind budget. Fairs sales are currently down on both budget and prior year. Fairs OI is ahead of last year, but behind budget. However, September fairs are paying well, and we are hoping for catch-up in the coming months.
Children's Books including rights and special sales is significantly ahead of last year, but currently behind budget. Our children's books trade sales - our sales to UK and Irish bookshops - are doing well relative to budget, so it's rights and special sales that are currently trailing behind budget a bit, but there are opportunities for catch-up before the end of the financial year. OI for Children's Books including rights and special sales is much better than last year, and ahead of budget.
Education Book sales and OI look good compared with both last year and budget. Revenue and OI from magazine publishing including advertising is not doing so well against prior and budget, but the gap isn't big, so I hope that we can fill it.
MGM sales and OI are good compared with both last year and budget, driven by strong performance from books.
So we've made a respectable start to the year across the businesses, and we have some particularly encouraging signs of growth and recovery already in our publishing businesses . As you know, we are budgeted to make a loss this year, so OI not meeting budget is important, and we must do whatever we can to catch up over the next eight months. This is a year of making sure we all do what we do as efficiently and effectively as possible, without losing our increasing support from customers and consumers.
Northern Lights lights up the screen!
New Line Cinema, creators of The Lord of the Rings, are to film Northern Lights, Philip Pullman's prizewinning bestseller. The film, called The Golden Compass, will star Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and is to be released in November 2007. Scholastic UK will publish tie-in books.
Book Fairs Ahoy!
Our new pirate themed book fairs went into schools this month with a great new range of books. They include 50 award winning books/authors, 22 exclusive editions and 72% of the range is under £5 — great deals for all Scholastic Book Fairs consumers.
Book Packs Take Off!
The NEW Book Pack catalogue targets school budget for children's books — providing the best of children's books in a discounted packs. We have made it very easy and affordable for teachers and librarians to keep their libraries well stocked. Irresistible! The catalogue only reached schools on 11th September and has already achieved more than 40% of its budget for the term. There will be a new catalogue each term and the range is also available online in the new Teacher Shop.
Teachers get caught in our web
On the 15th September we launched a new version of the Teachers' Shop on our own e-commerce platform that is properly integrated with our own back-end systems. The new site provides customers with the complete: Primary and Early Years Catalogue of teachers' resources, the new Book Packs Catalogue of packs of children's books and all of our teachers' magazine subscriptions. The site allows teachers to search and sort products by subject, by child's age/key stage, or by feature and selecting a product leads them to related product that might be of interest to them too. teachershop.scholastic.co.uk
It's still early days, but our revenue per order is up nearly £9 and we've taken over £28,000 in orders taken in the first three weeks. Look for more Scholastic catalogues moving online in the coming months…
We're winning!
- A DARKLING PLAIN
by Philip Reeve won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award on Thursday, 28th September. See his winning interview on the Guardian website. - DARKSIDE
by Tom Becker's first novel, has been shortlisted for the Waterstone's Childrens' Book Prize (previously the Ottakar's Book Prize). The winner is announced in November. - PEACE WEAVERS
by Julia Jarman has been shortlisted for the North East Teenage Book Award. The winner announced in January 2007. - BEAST
by Ally Kennen has been shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize The winner is announced 2nd November
New News
Mary Glasgow Magazines launched Kids News' in September 2006. This brand new title is aimed at primary school children and will become an essential part of English language lessons in the key markets of Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Slovenia, with a full European roll-out scheduled for 2007.
KIDS' NEWS is a primary magazine like no other - from David Beckham's Football Academy to the latest music of the Black Eyed Peas, plus audio and videos of real kids 'live from London' - KIDS' NEWS turns up-to-the-minute news into an ideal introduction to English for young learners aged 8 to 11. It features pull-out-and-keep language “passports” for the kids, extensive support material for teachers and a unique multi-format CD, making KIDS' NEWS a complete resource for teaching English in the primary classroom.
Finding New Suppliers: New printing contract done and dusted
Effective 1st October all new SCB titles will now be printed by CPI. Reprints will switch from Norhaven to CPI during September and October. The transition team in London and Southam are working hard in conjunction with CPI to ensure no interruption of supply.
Happy Birthday, Horrible Science!
Enthusing Consumers: Horrible Science is 10 years old!
Kew Gardens finished a summer of Horrible Science with a weekend of fun with Nick Arnold and Tony de Saulles, author and illustrator of Horrible Science. They had thousands of children through their Climbers and Creepers children's area throughout the school holidays where there were specially designed HS activity sheets, colouring competitions, and a HS trail of Kew Gardens. We are continuing this partnership in October half term.
Nick and Tony also visited Seven Stories, The Centre for the Children's Book, in Newcastle, followed by a visit to the Aberdeen's science festival, Techfest, where they saw more than 500 children, parents and teachers and sold more than £700 worth of books. Nick Arnold also launched Children's Book Week in October and Tony de Saulles featured on Blue Peter.
Partnering Customers: Read all about it!
From Saturday 14 October the Daily Telegraph is running a Horrible Histories book and audio promotion where you can claim a free book at your local WHSmith shop. The audio has been newly recorded for this promotion. There will be a TV advertising campaign to support the promotion throughout the 2 weeks. This will generate £160k of revenue for us!
Education Fair Success
On the 29th and 30th October, Education promoted our Educational Resources and Magazines at the Early Years and Primary Teaching Exhibition, in Islington. Overall it was a very good show.
We would like to thank all those who gave up their time and efforts to make this show a success and at such short notice, namely, Joy Monkhouse, Anna Oliwa and Geraldine Reidy for design. Sheena Bennett, Glyn Cadwallader and Bob Horne for helping ensure we received all of the stock in good time. Eloise Hickman, Laura Smyth, Michelle O'Brien, Denise Cripps, Helen Freeman and Chris Ratcliffe for their hard work on the stand.
We're Excellent!
Once again Scholastic has been accredited with the BIC ONIX Gold Standard for Data Excellence, the highest accreditation awarded by Book Industry Communication. Thanks and congratulations to Cathie Main, Steve Wilson, Glynis Dunhill and Pat Rowell.
Last year we were one of the first 4 publishers to gain the Gold Award and there are still only 5 publishers who have earned it. To gain the gold standard we have to transmit a full set of bibliographic data to Nielsen Bookdata using the ONIX system. This information is then fed to bookshops and libraries and is used by Nielsen in the databases of companies such as W H Smith and Waterstones.
A Fair Day Out
Book Fairs held our pirate themed annual conference on 5 September. Branch Managers, Telesales and other members of the Book Fairs team spent the day enjoying the new range, exploring the fun of this term's pirate theme, and discovering real opportunities for profit improvement going forward. We all think this is the best range in a long time, we love the theme and there is a real commitment to branches and the telesales teams working together to get costs down.
Prize Surprise!
A number of prizes were given out to staff for outstanding performance at the Fairs conference. Congratulations to you all!
- Highest number of calls made (telesales): 1st Sunita Patel (Northern), 2nd Sokvinder Bhadal (South West), 3rd Lisa Barber (Northern)
- Highest number of calls received (Customer Services): Karen Smith
- UK Driver of the Year: Ian Bodfish (Coventry)
- UK Pick Packer of the Year: Mary McDonald (Livingston)
- Branch Driver Team Award: Livingston
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.
Jim Fulbrook was presented with his retirement gift at the Book fair conference and he retires at the end of October. He has been manager of the East Grinstead branch for 10 years, and will be succeeded by Peter Barton.
Clubbing together
On 6 September, we held our Clubs September briefing, focussing on the most important offer of the year: September. The morning ended with a screening of Dave 'Just call me Spielberg' Sandford guiding us through the path of the September offers production and mailing.
Moving in the Movie Team
On Monday, 2nd November the new team who will be producing THE GOLDEN COMPASS film tie-in publishing started their 9-month contracts. Neil Kelly is Project Manager, Aja Bongiorno (pronounced 'Asia') is Designer, Laura Milne, is Project Editor. The team will be assisted by Steve West, who will be handling production. Our own Lisa Edwards is directing the team.
All in a good cause…
On Friday, 15th September a book fair was held in the Southam offices. In the hour that it took place, we raised a fantastic £295. The proceeds will be donated to Breast Cancer Research (www.breastcancercare.org.uk).
We'd like to say hello to the following people who have joined Scholastic in September:
- Eleanor Groves, Publishing Assistant in Leamington.
- Mary Farrell, Book Fair Co-ordinator in Coventry.
- Charlotte Bate, Telemarketing Co-ordinator in Witney.
- Steven Salisbury, Telemarketing Co-ordinator in Coventry.
- Karen Kearney, Telemarketing Co-ordinator in Coventry.
- Irene Molina, HR Administrator in Leamington.
- James Geraghty, Warehouse Operative in Dublin.