“BATIBOT” WAS the Pinoy version of “Sesame Street.” It disappeared from TV screens a while back, but the so-called idiot box still seems to be teaching toddlers the alphabet — and more.

Anicete, for one, says among National’s bestselling children’s books are those featuring characters from TV programs. These include Blues Clues books, derived from the cable TV show with the same title, and stories from Disney, especially those that feature Mickey Mouse. Books with TV tie-ins post big sales, says Anicete. “That’s what the kids look for,” she says, “what they saw in Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.”

	[photo by Jaileen Jimeno]

Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are cable channels that are not seen by many children going to public schools. But some kid-geared shows on free TV seem to be pushing up the sales of books that have titles similar to theirs. A good example of this is the revival of the program “Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang” on GMA 7. When the program began airing, Anicete says, sales of Lola Basyang books, priced at P65 each and several versions of which have been around since forever, also increased.

Anicete says that in 2006, National was able to sell 88 percent of their children’s book offerings, up two percentage points from 2005’s figure; she declines to cite the bookstore chain’s sales in terms of absolute numbers. National now has 95 branches nationwide, and remains the book market’s strongest institution in terms of book selling. Every time it opens a new branch, the number of potential readers rises.

Here’s another piece of good news: Even though bookstores now offer more foreign titles among their children’s books, local titles are selling better, at least at National branches. According to Anicete, this is because local books are more wallet-friendly. Although publishers use cheaper materials, she says, these are still of good quality.

Adarna, for instance, sells some 7,000 books a month; most of its books go into second printing within a year. Its softcover storybooks cost about P50 each. “It is not like the United States where you can sell children’s books for $20 on the basis of the art,” says Almario. “(We) can’t impose very high margins, no matter how much sweat we poured into making a book.”

She says that aside from price, Adarna lures buyers with a formula that makes sure Filipino children are always in its stories. “Part of our mission is to talk about all things Filipino, to write about things that is not far from the realm of the Filipino child,” she explains.

Adarna, which is almost three decades old, has seen a whole generation of Filipinos grow up reading its books. Its top seller remains Ibong Adarna (The Adarna Bird), which has been in print since 1981. Among its other popular titles are Alpabetong Filipino (The Filipino Alphabet), Si Pilandok at ang mga Buwaya (Pilandok and the Crocodiles), Si Pilandok sa Kaharian ng Dagat (Pilandok in the Sea Kingdom), and Ang Alamat ng Ampalaya (The Legend of the Bitter Gourd). Its alamat books awaken the imagination of young Filipinos while teaching them good manners and right conduct.

“Parents are now more conscious if a story has a moral lesson,” says Almario. “More than that, they also want books with pedagogical concepts like math, books with school values. And of course, they’re also concerned about the price. That’s still the primary consideration.”

THIS MAY be partly why the children’s books sector does not really turn in as much profit as other areas of the book industry, such as the textbooks. Says Almario: “We’re not raking in millions. It’s not lucrative but it can support our staff. The income is enough to help us survive, live.”

Low retail prices and a small market also mean writers of local children’s books should have day jobs. Anicete says that only those who have written numerous titles, and hence can live off on royalties, can go into writing more books. But Almario says most writers hold down other jobs to make ends meet. “Nobody writes full-time,” she says. “I don’t know of any who writes just children’s books full-time. Hindi talaga kaya (They just wouldn’t earn enough).”

Even at Adarna House, writers are paid a modest P15,000 for every story that goes to print. Illustrators get the same fee. For every book sold, the writer and illustrator each get a five-percent royalty. But the commissions, which come every quarter, are sometimes too little to merit attention. Other publishers offer as much as P35,000 for a children’s story, but that comes with the condition that the writer forfeits royalties.

	[photo by Jaileen Jimeno]

One can only imagine then how the writers — as well as the publishers — feel when their books are pirated. Anicete recalls hearing about mimeographed copies of children’s books, flash cards, and posters being sold in Blumentritt and Divisoria five years ago. She says even the ever-reliable Abakada was being pirated and sold off bilaos at P10 per copy. “The pirated versions are cheaper because they don’t have to pay royalties,” she says.

Almario says she has also seen photocopied Adarna books being sold in Baclaran. Actually, she clarifies, the pirated versions had been turned into coloring books, using the illustrations from the Adarna storybooks. But that doesn’t exactly make her feel any better.

Piracy is particularly painful for Adarna House, which spends as much as nine months in producing a book, the longest in the industry. Adarna sends the story to as many as three experts to check its accuracy and merit. Two versions of the book are initially printed. These are then taken to several schools, where they are critiqued and votes are taken over which is the better version. About 100 school children belonging to the book’s target age group make up the voters.

“The kids are the final critics,” says Almario. “We get comments like, why does the goat look like a pig, or why did you kill this or that character in the story?” The plot and the visuals are then revised accordingly before the book goes to print. Almario says while many illustrators now use computers, she encourages them to draw the artwork by hand. It may be the old-fashioned way, but she believes it is “grander looking.”

Having all that hard work reduced to poor photocopies is thus disheartening for Almario. “The copyright information was a forgery, they used pseudonyms,” she says of the Baclaran coloring books that used Adarna illustrations. But she has not attempted to file a complaint because, she says, no agency oversees the protection of intellectual property rights involving children’s books. Almario says she will only end up charging a few sidewalk vendors but not those who copied and printed their work.