Children’s eBook sales surge in 2014 in public libraries and schools through OverDrive
Library spending on children’s, juvenile, and young adult eBooks in 2014 grew by 48% over 2013. Helping drive this dramatic growth was OverDrive’s 2014 launch of narrated eBooks and highly-illustrated best-selling children’s titles using open industry-standard EPUB3 and OverDrive Read. These popular children’s eBook titles are compatible with any device connected to a web browser, including PCs, tablets, and mobile devices.
Libraries and schools have purchased tens of thousands of titles that showcase illustrations and two-page “across the spine” display of images with the story faithfully reproducing the print editions. As a result of OverDrive’s support for open-standard HTML5 and EPUB3, award-winning and iconic children’s authors and brands, including classic titles from Dr. Seuss, are now available as eBooks for lending from thousands of libraries and schools with an OverDrive catalog.
Narrated eBooks, with audio synced to text, include titles from actors and authors such as John Lithgow, Randy Travis, and Ray Charles, among others. Several narrated titles incorporate a full soundtrack and sound effects. The top-selling narrated eBook titles (all age groups) to libraries for 2014 from OverDrive were:
- Curious George Goes to the Zoo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade and Reference)
- 50 Below Zero (Open Road Integrated Media)
- I got the Rhythm (Bloomsbury USA)
- Found (Bloomsbury USA)
- Telephone (Chronicle Books)
- Here Comes Destructosaurus! (Chronicle Books)
- Time for Bed, Fred! (Bloomsbury USA)
- The Most Magnificent Thing (Kids Can Press Ltd.)
- An Early American Christmas (Open Road Integrated Media)
- Click, Clack, Moo (Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
The 10 Top Selling Illustrated eBooks (all age groups) sold to libraries by OverDrive in 2014 were:
- The Long Haul (Abrams)
- Hard Luck (Abrams)
- The Third Wheel (Abrams)
- Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury USA)
- The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Abrams)
- Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus (Abrams)
- The Cat in the Hat (Random House, Inc.)
- The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett (Abrams)
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Random House, Inc.)
- Green Eggs and Ham (Random House, Inc.)
“Ninety-three percent of children between the ages of two and 13 are reading or being read eBooks at least once per week, according to research by PlayCollective and Digital Book World,” says Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive. “With advancements from OverDrive including Kids eReading Rooms and enhanced eBooks, digital reading can be tailored for specific age groups, creating a truly immersive, quality experience for young readers.”
Visit OverDrive at Digital Book World in booth #302 to see the illustrated picture eBooks, narrated eBooks, streaming video and more.
3 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Browse blog and media articles
Public Library Training
K-12 Library Training
There is still nothing like a parent or other caregiver reading a book aloud with their child in person. But follow along ebooks are better than not reading at all!
I always appreciate the info that is shared in the Overdrive blogs. But, today as I was looking at the blog about children’s eBook sales to see which of the “top selling illustrated eBooks” are in our library – I had to laugh at one of the choices. Although it is an illustrated book, Can’t we talk about something more pleasant really can’t be categorized as a children’s book…unless you are talking about adult children with much older parents. As one of these adult children, I can appreciate the topic. Don’t think I will include it in our school library!
Hi Carol,
Right you are – “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant” doesn’t quite qualify as a children’s book! The lists included in this blog post are all-encompassing for the narrated eBook format and the fixed-layout format, and we didn’t distinguish between children’s and adult’s titles in the lists. Given the context of the rest of the post, I can certainly see how that is a bit muddled. Our mistake for not clarifying! I’ve updated the post accordingly. Thanks for your comment, and I hope you continue to enjoy the OverDrive blogs.