Book News: Estefan Out With Children’s Book, CD Collection


By Nancy Ayala

Don’t call it Gloria Estefan day. It’s more like “weeks.”

The second storybook by the singer-turned-children’s-book author goes on sale Oct. 10, the same day as the launch of a major national media tour for El Tesoro de Noelle: Una Nueva Mágica y Misteriosa Aventura (Noelle’s Treasure Tale: A New Magically Mysterious Adventure). Publisher Rayo, an imprint of HarperCollins, which has a deal for three children’s books with Estefan, has an extensive marketing and publicity campaign that will tap radio, television and print media, in both languages.

“She is truly a bicultural personality, big in the English-language market for certain reasons and big in the Spanish market,” says Ray García, associate publisher and marketing director at Rayo. “She’s not a translation of herself.”

That’s precisely why the two-CD collection The Essential Gloria Estefan, ranging from 1984 to 2003, and in stores today by Epic/Legacy, a division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, has been marketed for all music lovers. The album package also will play a part in helping to boost sales of the children’s book through a dual CD/book marketing deal at Target. The retailer bought 10,000 special edition copies of the book, which will be available only when you buy the CD, explains García. The first run of the second installment, aimed at children ages 4 to 8, will be approximately 100,000 copies in both languages.

A major national media tour hits the same day as the book’s release on Oct. 10, with a VH1 satellite interview. The rest of the week will include an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, guest-hosting on The View and a chat on XM Satellite Radio’s Oprah & Friends (all Oct. 11); an appearance on morning show Fox & Friends on Oct. 12; and a myriad number of interviews on Hispanic television, including CNN en Español (Oct. 13) and Univision.

Online campaigns include both AOL and AOL Latino, with interviews to boot. Univision Network will play a large role with an online sweepstakes for book giveaways, an online chat with Estefan, and commercials on the TV and radio units.

Target has an extensive advertising plan that goes beyond a “buy the book” mentality. The retailer will run full-page color ads in People and People en Español magazines to inspire people to read in coordination with the nonprofit initiative “Ready. Sit. Read!,” for which Estefan is a spokesperson. Newspapers buys are already slated in the top Hispanic markets — not only in Spanish-language papers such as El Diario La Prensa — but large general-market publications such as The New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald.

New York City bookstores will host readings the week of launch, as well as the Oct. 15 Great Read in Bryant Park in Manhattan, where Estefan will read al fresco her book in English and Spanish. Other large bookstores are already on tap to pick up copies of the book. “The distribution [in bookstores] is smarter,” García says. “We know where she sells and where she sells best. It’s more targeted.”

The five-time Grammy Award winner made a splash with her first children’s book, Las Mágicas y Misteriosas Aventuras de una Bulldog Llamada Noelle, around the same time last year, selling hundreds of thousands of books in both languages, according to Rayo’s García, and holding onto the No. 2 spot on “The New York Times Children’s Best Sellers” list for five weeks. Not bad considering the series of books was inspired by Estefan’s English bulldog of the book title’s name.

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