Targeting big, empty market niches - Just Us Books publishing company for Afro-American children's books - Secrets of Success

Home Office Computing, Sept, 1991 by Nick Sullivan

Targeting Big, Empty Market Niches

Wade and Cheryl Hudson wrote several children's books featuring African-American characters and tried to sell them to big New York book publishers. They all said there was no market for such books. So Wade and Cheryl, with backgrounds in public relations, publishing, and graphic design, started their own company.

"We asked, Why not do it ourselves? It was the best move we could have made, an important step," says Wade, president and chief executive officer of Just Us Books, which he and Cheryl started in 1988. "Instead of waiting for someone else to make decisions for us, we decided to control our own fate."

Their first two books, Afro-Bets ABC and Afro-Bets 123 have each sold more than 70,000 copies. The Book of Black Heroes, their third book, has sold more than 100,000 copies. Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, published earlier this year, won the Ben Franklin award for children's picture books from small, independent publishers. All told, they have 360,000 books in print. Revenues have soared from $125,000 in 1989 to $430,000 in 1990 to a projected $1.2 million for 1991.

The reason for their success is clear: The Hudsons tapped into a big, hungry market with virtually no competition and offered a product that was instantly accepted. Bigger publishers either considered the niche too small for their liking or didn't know how to create a product that would appeal to the market. "We didn't just do a book with a black face, which is what some publishers have done," says Cheryl. "We pull from African-American culture to make meaningful books. The characters in the books are different, with different color skins, faces, and lips - like real kids. And real kids respond to that. We've also been able to combine educational value with entertainment and mass-market appeal."

And that means that Just Us books sometimes appeal to markets beyond the African-African niche. "We've been pleasantly surprised at the number of white parents who want the books," says Wade. "They say they don't want their kids to grow up in an isolated environment. Pretty soon minorities will be a majority in this country. We've got to learn to live together."

STARTED WITH T-SHIRTS

The Hudsons didn't start out publishing books. In 1987, they sold T-shirts and sweatshirts with Afro-Bets characters - six children who bend into shapes to form letters and numbers. Although publishing books was in the back of their minds, the Hudsons still thought about placings books with established publishers. "But when the clothing took off, we knew we had something right away," says Cheryl. "We sold 4,000 shirts in nine months. Within a couple of weeks we knew we had to go to books. We sat at the diningroom table and said, |We've got something here.'" Only then, when taking the first steps to publishing books, did they write a business plan.

With 4 new books this fall, Just Us Books has 11 books in its line. As the company gains more visibility and more distribution, the back list sells better. Their first print run was 5,000 copies; now, their minimum printing is 20,000. And with eight employees, the Hudsons have moved the business into commercial office space.

Just Us Books does its own marketing, fulfillment, and distribution. "It's best to control every aspect of the operation, even if you have to learn as you go," says Wade. Their books are now sold in Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, Brentano, and Toys 'R Us chains, backed by advertising in publications such as The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Creative Classroom, and School Library Journal.

Just Us Books, still the only African-American-owned children's publishing company, has been featured in Essence, Black Enterprise, and Emerge magazines and on African-American talk shows in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston. "We've used niche media to help market a niche product," says Wade, noting that The Washington Post, The Detroit Free Press, and The Chicago Sun-Times have also run stories on Just Us Books.

"There's a lot of interest in what we're doing. We're talking with other publishers about co-ventures, perhaps creating and packaging products for them to sell. There are four companies interested in a number of ideas right now," says Wade. Right now, the future is clear: Publish more and more books, and keep the back list in print.

PHOTO : Wade and Cheryl Hudson, publishers of The Book of Black Heroes and Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, found a hole in the children's book market.

PHOTO : Just Us books have sold so well that the minimum first printing is now 20,000 copies.