About Scholastic Book PublishingThe Scholastic Corporation (sometimes known as Scholastic Press, Scholastic Inc, or Scholastic Book Publishing) is an American book publishing company known for publishing educational materials for schools, teachers, and parents, and selling and distributing them by mail order and via book clubs and book fairs, often in schools. It also has the exclusive United States' publishing rights to the successful Harry Potter book series and is the world's largest publisher of children's books. Scholastic has grown its business most recently by acquiring other children focused media companies, including Klutz Press, the animated television production company Soup2Nuts, the K-12 educational software publisher Tom Snyder Productions, and most significantly the reference publisher Grolier. Grolier publishes the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia and The New Book of Knowledge. Scholastic Book Publishing has long been the company's core business though, and perhaps what it is most known for. This ranges from children's and teen's books designed for entertainment, to academically oriented text books. It began in 1920 when Maurice R. "Robbie" Robinson founded the business he named Scholastic Publishing Company in his hometown of Pittsburgh. As a publisher of youth magazines, the first publication was The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic, which covered high school sports and debuted on October 22, 1925. After World War II, cheap paperback books became available. In 1948, Scholastic entered the school book club business with its division T.A.B., or Teen Age Book Club with classic titles priced at 25 cents. This would be the start of Scholastic Book Publishing's long history of marketing paper backs in school book fairs. Scholastic typically offers participating schools and classrooms one "point" for every dollars worth of products ordered. Additional points may be earned during special promotions, such as the beginning of the school year. Points may then be redeemed for books and school supplies at a rate of 20 points to the dollar. At minimum, schools earn 5% of book orders in free products, but with special promotions, return rate can be much higher (15-100%). Scholastic Book Publishing recently found success outside the schoolhouse with their Harry Potter series of books. Beginning in 1997, Scholastic has been the publisher for every book in the now completed series. The huge success of the English book series greatly boosted Scholastic's revenue and reach beyond their traditional market in education. Scholastic Book Publishing efforts remain focused on the education and children's media market however, and Scholastic currently has a number of publications in other forms of media as well. |