Characters from Jo Rose’s ‘Deer Little Forest’ brand, in content developed for a series of early-age books. Image: DeerLittleForest.com
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Already Licensed in 27 Territories
London brand management house Koko Rose Media this month has “just closed international rights for Russian, Chinese, and Turkish-language interactive books,” the firm’s Lisa Hryniewicz tells Publishing Perspectives.
Under terms of the arrangement, Cyprus-based AmayaSoft is to produce a series of English-language learning products based on Jo Rose’s Deer Little Forest brand.
Deer Little Forest is an early-learning series for children up to age 3, with Lockhart Deer as the lead character in a cast illustrated by Rose. Ingrid Selberg, formerly managing director of Simon & Schuster UK Children’s, developed a series of board books based on this content, as mentioned in The Bookseller in 2017. Margaret Hope, formerly an art director with Random House, Simon & Schuster, and the BBC, is also attached to the project.
The Deer Little Forest books made their debut at the Bologna Book Fair this year, with Ingrid Selberg Consulting Ltd. listed as developer. Licensing agents in 27 countries represent Jo Rose’s cast of critters, which draw on elements of Scandinavian folklore and the inspiration of southern England’s New Forest.
Using proprietary app-creation technology called MyBookTools, AmayaSoft plans to release a Deer Little Forest educational app. The company distributes its products across several mobile platforms including Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play.
In a prepared statement, Bakhram Fayzutdinov, founding chief technology officer with AmayaSoft, is quoted, saying, “We’ve built up expertise in developing interactive books and educational apps for children. We understand that great content plays a significant role in creating a high-quality app.
“We found exactly what we needed in Deer Little Forest—unique characters and original illustrations created by Jo Rose. This is how we came up with the idea of working together with Koko Rose Media and developing a children’s educational app based on the Deer Little Forest brand…[for] both small users and their parents.”
Hryniewicz says that the caliber of AmayaSoft’s work is the key to Koko Rose’s interest in this rights sale. “The quality of AmayaSoft’s products and the ingenuity of their designs is a perfect fit for our brand values,” she says, “which strive to reach both child and parent with our original content and intrinsic value. AmayaSoft’s vast experience and established distribution channel will surely help Deer Little Forest teach English to a lot of kids.”
“We found exactly what we needed in Deer Little Forest–unique characters and original illustrations.”Bakhram Fayzutdinov
AmayaSoft was founded in 2009, and produces digital textbooks, educational content, interactive cartoons, 3D interactive popup books, and books with augmented reality elements. The deal with AmayaSoft was brokered by Koko Rose’s Russian agent, Maria Tkachenko of Icon Licensing, Hryniewicz says more negotiations are going forward for the early-learning and baby-book concepts presented at Bologna.
Koko Rose Media was founded by Rose in 2013 with Hryniewicz. Licensing agents include:
- This is Iris (UK, Ireland)
- Brand Licensing by Burda (Germany and GST)
- Icon Company (Russia, CIS)
- Empire Multimedia (China, South Korea, South East Asia)
In addition to publishing products, the Deer Little Forest branded designs have been licensed across stationery, housewares, digital games, and magazines.
From ‘Deer Little Forest’ brand book artwork developed for presentation at Bologna by Ingrid Selberg Consulting Ltd.