The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

Collins signs deal with parenting website

02.05.08 Graeme Neill

Collins is to publish a series of “bouncy and upbeat” parenting books from mother and baby social networking site gurgle.com.

Collins, which paid a five-figure sum for three books from the website, will publish gurgle: Pregnancy—how to enjoy it, gurgle: Feeding Solved and gurgle: Sleep Solved as £12.99 paperbacks with flaps next spring.

Gurgle.com launched in 2007, backed by retailer Mothercare. It uses social networking capabilities to link like-minded mothers by location, pregnancy stage or shared interest, and offers how-to videos on a range of different topics. It has 40,000 registered members, and attracts more than a quarter of a million unique users every month.

Denise Bates, publishing director at Collins, said she wanted the titles to reflect the “upbeat and bouncy” nature of the website. “The books are very upbeat; [we won’t be] making them worthy and hard work, which is the tendency of some other books in the genre,” she said. Bates described the pregnancy and childcare book genre as a “slow burner”. “But once you are in there with the right book, it will continue successfully for years.”

She said that the books’ content would reflect the website’s “real-life tips” for parenting. “It’s very much on-the-ground stuff, and this becomes really important for first time parents,” she said. “Actually getting advice and checking things through is really important for them.”

She believes parents will still want to buy the books, even though they will contain some information that can be found on gurgle.com. “You don’t have to sit in front of a PC and click through various web pages,” she said. “A PC doesn’t have the portability of a book, and everything you need will be in the one place.”

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