Sweet deal for Scholastic

Scholastic Children's Books is to launch a series of titles based on the Bubblegum characters, which were originated in the UK by Carlton Cards. The venture is expected to generate sales worth £500,000 in the first few months. The first five titles will be published in the autumn.

Scholastic is optimistic that the anarchic Bubblegum characters will do well in book format. The series has some strong precedents: the Purple Ronnie characters, first published on greetings cards during the 1980s, have been successfully branded across a range of products, including books.

Carlton Cards' parent group American Greeting retains the worldwide rights to the book titles. It is currently spending around $7m on the US launch of the Bubblegum brand. Scholastic US is said to be interested in US rights.

Scholastic UK suggested the Bubblegum publishing venture to Carlton Cards 18 months ago. Gavin Lang, Scholastic sales and marketing director, said: "The Bubblegum product is enormously successful. The question for us was, can we turn a £70m phenomenon in the greetings card world into a book format that is successful?"

Scholastic's editorial team have been working closely with Ged Backland, creative director, and Phil Renshaw, art director, at Carlton's Alternative Cards. The initial five titles include Bubblegum: The Groovy Guide (£4.99, 0439998433), which has a first print run of 50,000.

Further titles will be launched in the spring and prior to Valentine's Day 2001. Mr Lang is confident that the cards will continue to be successful and that the brand has another three to five years of strong sales.