The Random House Group and Stardoll Announce
Exclusive Global Publishing Partnership
London, UK (7th September, 2011) – RHCB is delighted to announce that it has secured an exclusive global publishing partnership with Stardoll, the world’s largest website for teen and tween girls. The deal is for three years and covers a range of non-fiction books, the first five of which will publish this September.
Meanwhile RHCB continues its amazingly successful publishing series online with Stardoll with the release this week of Fool’s Silver, the second in the Mortal Kiss stories. Since its launch in August Fool’s Silver has attracted 58,000 Stardoll members who have created 300 sceneries and the top topic ‘fave Mortal Kiss character’ already has over 1000 posts – all exceeding expectations.
Non-Fiction Books
The non-fiction books mark the first time Stardoll member’s MeDolls (personally styled avatars) will be published in a series of books and sold at retail. The range of 5 books includes Top Trends – Autumn/Winter, Fashion Factor, Super Stylist, My Style Diary and Official Handbook. Each book features a different and exclusive virtual gift from Stardoll, that readers can download for their MeDoll and Suite. There is also a complementary Stardoll Books Club area on the site, where users can post their comments and thoughts about these books, or any books.
Mortal Kiss – Second Series
Last year the first Mortal Kiss story was created and serialised online over an 8-week period and received a phenomenally positive response with over 17 million views online. A physical book was published in January. The Mortal Kiss campaign recently won the Content Innovation award at the FutureBook Awards.
Philippa Dickinson, MD at RHCB comments: “We are delighted to be extending our partnership with Stardoll to offer girls a range of aspirational, fashion-packed books, as well as another interactive online reading experience. It’s a terrific example of using our traditional publishing expertise and our world class ability to tell engaging stories to help us reach new audiences by delivering fresh, creative content to new platforms. It’s a wonderful offering.”
“We’re excited to be partnering again with leading global publisher Random House,” says Mattias Miksche, CEO at Stardoll. “Stardoll members will have double the fun this time around with a second series in Mortal Kiss, combined with a new series of Stardoll books that encourage girls to create their own style, and unique fashion sense.”
For further information:
Joan Lockwood, Stardoll Media Clare Hall-Craggs, Random House
Tel: +44 020 7292 7143 Tel: +44 020 8231 6412
joan@stardoll.com clarehallcraggs@randomhouse.co.uk
Notes to Editors
About Stardoll Media, the world’s leading group of websites devoted to young women and girls. Launched in early 2009, Stardoll Media includes: Stardoll – the social gaming destination with a focus on fame, fashion and friends. Pizco – the original platform devoted to social self-expression and visual blogging; and PaperDollHeaven – a simpler, game-play environment for a younger demographic. Stardoll Media works with the world’s largest brands as they look to engage with an increasingly elusive teen audience. Stardoll Media is the number one publisher globally in Comscore’s teen category, both in Europe and globally. The business is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden with offices in the US, UK and Germany, and is backed by two of the world’s top venture capital firms: Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures.
About The Random House Group is one of the largest general book publishing companies in the UK. The Group is based in London and has subsidiary companies in Australia, New Zealand and India, with a joint venture in South Africa called Random House Struik. The Group comprises five publishing companies: Cornerstone Publishing, CCV, Ebury Publishing, Random House Children’s Books and Transworld Publishers, boasting more than 40 diverse and highly respected imprints. The Random House Group distribution business services its own imprints as well as 60 other UK publishers. The Random House Group is an independently managed subsidiary of Random House Inc in the US, the trade book publishing division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s largest and most diversified integrated media companies.