Old Tales for New Times — Inspired by 9/11, Atlanta Firm Wants to Bring Kids' Classics to Wider Audience
By Mike Tierny
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — March 23, 2005
Marsh Cove Productions, an Atlanta-based multimedia company, has acquired August House Publishers for an undisclosed price. Located in Little Rock, Ark., August House specializes in children's books and spokenword audio. August House will continue to be run by Ted and Liz Parkhurst who will remain in Little Rock.
Steve Floyd, head of the 18-month old Marsh Cove, said the August House titles "give us a great foundation" to develop products for television, the movies and the Internet. Ted Parkhurst said the additional resources of Marsh Cove, both in terms of funding and manpower, "will give us the opportunity to do things we had though of, but couldn't afford." First new products include Web-based activities that tie-in to books and possible DVDs based on August House titles.
Parkhurst says the sale to Marsh Cove comes about one year after August House began to rebound from a business slump that began with September 11 and continued with the decline in funding to libraries, a crucial market for the company. Since last July, sales are up about 30% led by Spicy Hot Colors and The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday. August House, which plans to publish 16 new titles this fall, has a backlist of 364 titles, with two-thirds books and one-third spokenword audio.
In an enchanted land called Atlanta, they converged upon a garden of literary delights, as if drawn by magic.
Five caring souls, of diverse talent and background, pulled together with a shared goal. In the post-9/11 world, they pledged to nurture families and educate youngsters by escorting classic folk tales into these high-tech times.
Well, that's their story — on how they conjoined to remodel old stories for multimedia consumption — and they're sticking to it.
"Sure, we want to make money," says Steve Floyd, founding partner and chief executive of 2-year-old Marsh Cove Productions, whose retelling of the firm's origins seems borrowed from the pages of its fanciful books. "At the same time, we want to make great products for kids."
Youngsters are increasingly voracious readers — or, at least, book owners. The number of children's titles published in the United States has nearly doubled since 2002. Last year, U.S. sales of kids books topped $1 billion.
Floyd hatched Marsh Cove, then went shopping for a publisher of children's stories. He settled on August House, acquiring the respected mom-and-pop company anchored in Little Rock. The 250 book titles that came with the company will be reissued, along with spinoffs, in the traditional, bound sense.
But the company intends to gain a wider audience with a sensory bombardment of animation through various channels: radio, television, films, live storytelling, DVD, CD, CD-ROM, Internet, interactive and whatever newfangled means of entertainment come down the pike. Many will come shaped as contemporary adaptations of ancient tales.
The spark, Marsh Cove executives claim, was the 2001 terrorist attacks. "That's the defining moment of our generation," Floyd said. "You want to do something."
Floyd was semiretired, winding down a career that has focused on simplifying the use of technology. His "IBM Multimedia Handbook," a guide to hardware and software applications, was published in 1991, before tech was cool.
Joe Kissack, head of sales and distribution, sold syndication rights for "Seinfeld" and partook in developing LidRock, a fountain drink top programmed to play music, videos and games.
Creative director Graham Anthony helped birth Atlanta Singles magazine and sketched editorial cartoons for the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Lead storytellerRob Cleveland is a stand-up comic, an actor whose track record ranges from Shakespeare to "That Darn Cat," and a lecturer at Emory University Law School on how to effectively spin a yarn in court.
Education director Pamela Rubin established an instruction plan for potentially violent adolescents, one of whom tried to poison her by putting chemicals in her coffee.
Most of the Marsh Cove five have school-age children. Floyd says he was struck by an epiphany while, naturally, teaching Sunday school. Tales that subtly impart a lesson and build cross-cultural understanding deserve wider exposure, he decided.
One by one, the others came onboard.
Floyd said he shopped around his germ of an idea for seed money. "Great," came the reply from peers. "Now, how do you turn this into a business?"
"That's been the No. 1 challenge," he said.
Educationally minded media are dominated by a wholesome trinity: Scholastic, Highlights For Children and Disney. Floyd noted that Disney has veered off from its primary mission, and he has endeavored to fill the void.
Marsh Cove scoured the nation for an affordable buy and discovered that August House founders Ted and Liz Parkhurst were interested in unloading their company. Its library includes prized authors, including Atlanta couple Bobby and Sherry Norfolk
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Said Anthony, "We saw these stories that weave a tapestry, showing there are common threads that bind us."
August House's only flirtation with storytelling beyond primitive book form was 100 spoken-word titles. It aspired to broaden. "But we had gotten about as far as we could go with our present resources," said Ted Parkhurst. He and his wife remain company officers.
The company's roots date to 1979, when Ted Parkhurst quit his management job to sell poems and fairy tales door-to-door on his moped.
Neither party disclosed a sales price. Ted Parkhurst said revenue for August House inched above $2 million in 2004. Floyd projects $3 million to $4 million in sales this year as Marsh Cove expands the August House customer base beyond schools, libraries and storytelling festival-goers. Floyd hopes to extend the company's reach globally within four years, with emphasis on Latin America.
Whether the quintet lives happily ever after as a result of their venture will take awhile to play out. Floyd, who is seeking corporate underwriters, tells would-be investors that $100 billion is spent yearly in America on family-friendly entertainment.
"And," he said, "we just want a percent of that."
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About August House
Recently recognized as one of "America's 101 Top Independent Publishers," August House is a highly-acclaimed and award-winning multimedia publisher of children's stories and folktale anthologies. August House's is based in Atlanta, GA.
August House Media Contact
Rob Cleveland
404-442-4422
