Hardie Grant Egmont announces new 'chirpy bird' imprint

Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE) adds ‘chirpy’ titles to its focused publishing list to consolidate their reputation for being ‘the early bird that catches the worm’ within the children’s market.

In the year that Hardie Grant Egmont celebrates its 10th birthday; a new imprint has been created to complement the company’s focused publishing approach. Hardie Grant Egmont currently boasts two stellar imprints; the 2010 acquisition of Little Hare as a focused picture book imprint and the HGE imprint as a focused fiction strand. The focus of Chirpy Bird will be licensed and non-licensed format-driven publishing.

The philosophy behind the Chirpy Bird list is simple: an understanding that people want good quality books at good prices, and for them to be available wherever they shop.

“In Little Hare we have a stellar list of best-loved and award-winning picture books. In HGE we have best-selling and children’s choice award-winning series. With Chirpy Bird our aim is to produce books for children of all ages across licensed and non-licensed formats that are consumer and price driven, but that don’t compromise world-class content and packaging standards ,” said Natasha Besliev, Managing Director of HGE.

The company has also undertaken an aggressive licensing acquisition phase that began last year with the rights for Thomas & Friends TM colour & activity rights as well as the DC Comics publishing rights. Publishing rights were also secured late last year to card swap sensation, Forever Clover recently featured on Channel Ten’s The Circle.    

Over the past 10 years Hardie Grant Egmont has been actively growing its list to ensure the broadest market coverage to achieve its aim of publishing a book for every kid. In doing so, they have cultivated a reputation for being the ‘early bird that catches the worm’ with their ability to fill gaps in the market by producing books that kids want to read, not what they are told to read. This trend will continue into 2012 with more stand alone middle-grade and YA fiction titles planned, as well as adding to the growing stable of series fiction they already offer.

Correspondingly, the Little Hare imprint will also maintain its standard for yielding books that are treasured gifts to be shared with children. Beautiful, tactile objects that cannot be replaced by their digital version that are also a mix of literary and award-winning picture books by some of Australia’s most respected and loved talents.

This focused approach will not only result in more books being available to a broader audience and across all retail sectors, but in the National Year of Reading, it should also equate to more kids reading – Hardie Grant Egmont’s ultimate aim.

Media release supplied by Hardie Grant Egmont.