Originally introduced in October 2011 at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Purple Turtle is a gender neutral character with a global appeal. What started out with mere three books has now grown in scale and more than 150 titles of Purple Turtle have been published. The books are available in 25 Countries including USA, UK, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Indonesia, Sir Lanka, Malaysia and India, where its available in 6 languages: Kannanda, Tamil, Telugu, Gujrati, Hindi and English.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com Manish Rajoria, director of Aadarsh says: “The journey is very exciting and very similar to a fairy tale where all your dreams are coming true. Purple Turtle started as a children’s book imprint of Aadarsh but has now transformed to a gender neutral pre-school character for global audience, looking at the amazing response.”
The response of the books was exceptionally good and on suggestions from most of the publishers to adapt the character into an animated series, the company engaged global talent and created a pilot episode.
Manish reveals: “Catering to the huge demands for goodies of the character, we have also recently started rolling out merchandise in the form of cushions, bags, trolleys, stickers, T-shirts, stationery and mugs.
The year 2014 also witnessed some great deals struck by the company, “We have tied up with Book Shelf in India, CV Media Center in Indonesia, Hebei Children’s Publishing House in China, Susaeta in Greece, Prism Books in India, Sarasavi Book Shop in Sri Lanka,” he adds.
Purple Turtle currently has over 13 licensing agents globally and continues to reach out to more markets by actively participating at Hong Kong Toy and Licensing Show; Kid Screen; Mip TV, Mip Junior and Mip Com; Bologna Children Book Fair and Bologna Licensing Show; Licensing Expo, Vegas; Frankfurt Book Fair; Brand Licensing Show, London and World Book Fair, New Delhi, among others.
Manish believes that the success of the IP lies in the fact that the character is gender neutral and also has a global appeal to it. “The stories of Purple Turtle have become very popular and we have signed rights deals with many Indian & international publishers. Purple Turtle publishing is very popular in Russia and is being published by our licensee, Eskmo, one of the largest publishers in Russia & CV Media Center in Indonesia. Sarasavi Bookshop, Colombo will be publishing Purple Turtle stories in Sinhala and these story books are available in Kazakhstan, Latvia, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, USA and Mexico as well.”
Book Apps have been licensed to Mee Genius in the USA and Gazoob in the UK. Palyrific from US has licensed the characters of Purple Turtle for creation of games and apps. Apart from these deals there are many deals in the negotiation stage which will be signed shortly.
And seeing the potential of e-commerce the Purple Turtle has also been made available across the major e-tailers like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. Manish is also pushing for having the character available on Amazon in US and UK as well.
“The success of Purple Turtle has encouraged us to now expand and introduce more new IPs and some of them are: Colour Fairies, Ring Robinson, Goople Woople, Robots, Roxy the Pirate and The Flute Magician,” ends Manish.