– CricketPang signs a publishing contract with HarperCollins India for animation storybooks.
– With an initial print of 78,000 books, it will be on sale in major book-stores and online retails such as Amazon in India starting July.
– The CricketPang animation publishing and broadcasting on major OTT channels will increase brand awareness in India.
National, 22 March, 2021: YouNeedCharacter’s CEO, Minsu Song has announced that around July they will be publishing a set of 26 storybooks of CricketPang with HarperCollins India, a world-renowned publishing company based in the United States. The publishing contract includes a 26-book series based on the CricketPang animation and it will help increase the popularity of the CricketPang character brand in India and accelerate related sales.
Minsu Song added, “Along with the broadcasting of CricketPang, we found publishing very important as well, so we put our best effort into selecting a publishing partner. We are very happy to have signed with HarperCollins, a major publishing company in India, and we are excited to complete and start distributing throughout India. For the remainder of the year, we will continue preparation for the storybooks and create books that will be loved by local and global children all around the world.”
Rakesh Chander of HarperCollins publishing said, “Cricket is a loved sport in India, so an animation based on cricket will gain great popularity. We are happy to work with CricketPang for the storybook series and together we will publish books that bring positive influence to young readers. After the publication of the first series, we would like to continue working together and plan other book series using the CricketPang IP.”
In addition to publishing, other projects in India have shown results as well. The CricketPang TV channel started broadcasting on JIO, an OTT platform owned by India’s largest mobile telecommunications company, and recently, the CricketPang brand has signed up Indian Cricketer ‘Ajinkya Rahane’ – the vice-captain of the Indian-test team, which has created a buzz. Also, the ‘CricketPang Kindergarten APP’ has over 100,000 downloads, and ‘CricketPang TV’ the official YouTube channel for CricketPang has over 20,000 subscribers, with views exceeding 5 million. CEO Minsu Song said, “We plan to establish the value as a brand in a short period of time by entering various businesses and using marketing tactics such as airing on different OTT channels, celebrity marketing, educational apps, YouTube services, publishing, and licensing.”
YouNeedCharacter’s publishing contracts for the CricketPang storybooks with HarperCollins is meaningful because it is an animation brand that is publishing through a major publisher in India. The books will be published in India with plans of exporting them to markets like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Middle East. The future of YouNeedCharacter and CricketPang is something to look forward to.
About YouNeedCharacter
YouNeedCharacter is an animation and character production company found in 2017 by CEO Minsu Song, who has previously worked in Iconix, famous for their project ‘Pororo’, and Samsung Everland as the head of the content business. Actively developing characters and concepts for original character brand IPs and animations to advance into the global markets, especially with their flagship animation, ‘CricketPang’.
About HarperCollins India
HarperCollins India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2000 titles across 10 imprints. HarperCollins India authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, the DSC Prize, the New India Foundation Award, the Atta Galatta Prize, the Shakti Bhatt Prize, the Publishing Next Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Oneworld, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.
You Need Character signs a publishing contract with HarperCollins, one of India’s largest publishing companies.
