Usborne Publishing

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Usborne Publishing
Usborne Logo Strapline Lockup.webp
StatusActive
Founded5 December 1973;50 years ago (1973-12-05)
Founder Peter Usborne
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Headquarters locationLondon
Distribution HarperCollins (UK trade, US trade, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India)
Penguin Random House (South Africa)
Educational Development Corporation (USA direct sales) [1] [2]
Fiction genres Children's literature
No. of employees210 (2014) [3]
Official website usborne.com

Usborne Publishing, often called Usborne Books, is a British publisher of children's books. Founded by Peter Usborne in 1973, [4] Usborne Publishing uses an in-house team of writers, editors, and designers. One of its sales channels is Usborne Books at Home, a multi-level marketing operation founded in 1981. [5] [6] In the United States, Usborne books are sold and distributed to the retail trade through HarperCollins. [7] Direct customer sales are made through PaperPie, the home business division of Educational Development Corporation. [8]

Contents

Quicklinks were first introduced in 2000 as a way to incorporate the internet into modern reading habits. Peter Usborne has been quoted in the trade magazine The Bookseller as saying: "I initially thought that the internet would kill non-fiction, because teachers would tell children to use the internet to help with homework. But if you key in 'castles' [on a search engine], you get 900,000 possible websites. The internet is an inadequate resource for children." [9]

See also

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That's Not My... is a series of baby and toddler children's books written by Fiona Watt, illustrated by Rachel Wells and published by Usborne Publishing. Every book focuses on a different subject, which have included animals, vehicles and people. The first book in the series was That's Not My Puppy... which was published in 1999. Each two-page spread of the books contains a different brightly coloured picture of the subject with different attributes represented by a material. The reader is introduced to the different versions of the subject of the book with the phrase "That's not my". The inclusion of materials creates a sensory experience for the reader as they are invited to feel the material and identify why the subject on the page is or is not the correct version. By 2019, the That's Not My... series had sold 6.4 million copies of over 50 books and made over £30.6 million. As of July 2022, there are 72 books in the series.

References

  1. "UK Trade order forms from Usborne Publishing". Usborne Children’s Books. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  2. "International trade enquiries". Usborne Children’s Books. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. "Work is child's play for book publisher Peter Usborne". Financial Times. 14 March 2014.
  4. "Who we are". usborne.co.uk. Archived from the original on 20 October 2007. Retrieved 12 November 2007.
  5. Mary M. Byers (1 April 2009). Making Work at Home Work: Successfully Growing a Business and a Family under One Roof. Baker Books. pp. 124–. ISBN   978-1-4412-0382-3 . Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  6. Sandra Hewett (1 June 2011). A Woman's Guide To Working For Herself: Inspiration, Information and Advice from Women Who Run Their Own Business, for Women Who Aspire to Do So. Little, Brown Book Group. pp. 160–. ISBN   978-1-84803-466-2 . Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  7. Comerford, Ruth (14 November 2022). "Usborne joins forces with HarperCollins in US distribution deal". The Bookseller . Archived from the original on 30 December 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  8. "Usborne Books & More Rebrands to PaperPie". www.directsellingnews.com. 11 January 2023. Archived from the original on 30 January 2023. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  9. "The Usborne Identity – an interview with Peter Usborne". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 11 September 2009. Retrieved 8 May 2008.