(PR.co.nz) Two new books hit the shelves this month and they could very well be the most challenging children’s books ever released. Nerdy Numbers and Sci-fi Shapes, the result of a successful 2013 Kickstarter campaign, set out to teach kids about numbers and shapes in an unashamedly geeky way.
Beginning innocently enough, it doesn’t take long until the circles and triangles have become googols and hyperboloids. It’s an educational journey for the parents as much as the kids, and intentionally so as author Andrew Spear explains:
“If we can make it more fun for parents to read to their kids then inevitably the kids are going to take more from it too. We’re not shy about challenging kids with really complicated words, our daughter has already taught her granddad what a Venn diagram is!”
Producing a physical book in a digital world might sound a fool’s errand, especially when it’s written for hi-tech families. But children’s books buck the publishing trend with sales of physical books stronger than ever, mainly due to young children not having their own Kindles to read in bed, and you can’t gift wrap an app!
Despite the books being “traditional” hard copies, the books were truly a product of our digital age. The New Zealand authors discovered their Czech illustrator online and sketches and proofs were exchanged over email and Dropbox. The books were digitally printed in Malaysia and fulfilled from Georgia through an online distribution system. The project was crowd-funded through Kickstarter, marketed entirely online via social media and tech blogs.
“We can run the entire international operation from our dining table in the evenings, it blows our minds too!” Says Andrew.
The books are the sequels to the 2012 hit “My Little Geek” which teaches ABCs with holographic ninjas and time traveling joysticks. These books sold thousands of copies in dozens of countries and even saw the authors featured on national TV.
Now that the trilogy is complete, what’s next for the My Little Geek series? There is an iPad app underway, talk of a board game and dreams of a TV series.
“There are so many places we could go next. We’d love the expand the My Little Geek empire or perhaps look at other markets like My Little Musician or My Little Entrepreneur!”
You can find out more about the books at Amazon or ThinkGeek.
Media Release 31 January 2015.