Tinkle is a monthly magazine ‘where learning meets fun’. Each Issue Contains Delightful Stories, Science/General Knowledge, Gags, Puzzles, Craft idea etc.

2. A year shy of its fiftieth birthday, the iconic brand looks to bridge the gap with a
new generation of children

3. Storyteller to generations of Indians, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), is busy
reinventing itself. Close to five years after its digital foray, it has come out with a
new YouTube channel dedicated to stories from its magazine Tinkle and is
working with game developers to tell stories that are in tune with the times, in an
interactive fashion.

4. Manas Mohan, CEO Publishing, Amar Chitra Katha says, "My business is telling a
story. I am not concerned with the medium in which people read it." The
company has tied up with augmented reality app, Blippar and in January, this
year; it tied up with Nazara Games to develop mobile-based games. However an
online multiplayer game Katha, it launched in 2009, had to be taken off the market
because the company says it was ahead of its time.

5. ACK is upbeat about its efforts to beat its competitors in the digital space.
However, the big challenge is beating piracy and convincing users to pay for
content. Many have struggled to do that. Mohan says that when it comes to Indian
content, quality is an issue. ACK will not only go for high production values, it
will also focus on developing and packaging its print products such that it better
suits the tastes of its target audience. It spends about 10-12 per cent of its turnover
on building the brand, he informs.

6. "The way we tell stories has a unique style, not just the words, but also pictures,"
says Mohan. What he means is that the Stories for Kids - both in the graphic
novels and the magazines - are told simply and presented in a manner that every
child can understand them. This will continue to be the brand's core promise. For
instance, neither the new books nor the films or the games being developed deal
with death, illness, sex and violence, Mohan says.

7. It has also stuck to the formula with the two full length animated films it has
produced so far - Tripura and Sons of Ram. A similar value system is visible
with the newly launched YouTube channel on Suppandi and friends. The
channel has 49 videos currently which will go up to 120, by July this year.
Mohan says, "We are now going to be very powerful on the AV space. We are
very clear that is the way ahead." The brand's next frontier is television and
"right now and we are in discussions for a linear television programme" he adds.

8. To push its digital content, the
company plans to harness its
database of around five lakh
children, which is growing at
25,000-50,000 per month. ACK
also recently introduced a library
app which lets users borrow
(online) books for a limited
period at a very low price.
The company is still beta testing
it.
For Tinkle, among the top five
English magazines in the country
today with sales of around three
lakh copies a month, the company
is introducing stories and
characters that are better aligned
to modern-day preferences. In its
thirty fifth edition (November
2015), a new super hero Wingstar,
a 13-year old girl from the North-
east, was launched. "The idea is to
keep up. Right now the trend is to

9. Tinkle's readership, according to the
company, is around 3.5 to four kids
per copy and it currently sells
around three lakh copies
cumulatively, including the Tinkle
Books Digest and the character-
based magazines. The company has
also launched the magazine in Hindi
and Tamil.
ACK's sales are largely from its
network of retail outlets. Around 65
per cent of total sales take place at
offline retail stores while e-
commerce accounts for around 25
per cent of the business. The rest is
from direct sales to schools. The
company, currently engaged with
1,200 schools, is increasing its
engagement and the number of
schools on the list because with
"around 2.5 crore kids coming into
school every year" it is a large

10. ACK is bullish on the books business, given that it has managed to beat back some of
the challenges it faced a decade ago. In 2000 ACK had hit a roadblock as finances
had become a challenge and founder Uncle Pai's health had deteriorated. In 2011, the
Kishore Biyani-led Future Group took majority control and the brand was given a
fresh lease of life. The company has published nearly 50-odd titles in the last five
years. The company realised that with more disposable income, parents buy five to
20 titles at a time. So instead of 32-page books (as was the norm earlier), the
company moved to 120-240 page books. Also, Mohan says, "Our production and
paper quality is better, the colouring is more complicated and mostly our books are
hardbound." He hopes that these efforts will pay off in the near future, helping ACK
connect with a new generation of readers in the real and the virtual world.

11. THANKS!
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stories-for-kids-goes-back-to-school
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