More Trends in Adult Coloring

Even as it starts to slow, the adult coloring book sector remains both a product category of interest to licensors and, increasingly, a source for licensed properties.

As Publishers Weekly put it in an April 29, 2016 article, “Adult coloring book sales have slowed somewhat since the holiday frenzy of 2015, but the category is still one of the hottest segments in the industry.”

As the sector matures, it is diversifying:

  • More types of publishers are getting involved. In addition to book publishers of all stripes, magazines including Better Homes & Gardens (Australia), Vogue, and Taste of Home have introduced coloring books, while comic book publishers are also getting into the act. Marvel publishes Star Wars, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, and other coloring titles, for example.
  • Coloring is being incorporated into all sorts of licensing deals. The National Parks Foundation’s partnership with HitRECord, a collaborative online community of musicians, artists, and fashion designers, features a 92-page coloring book, as well as t-shirts, hats, onesies, and animated videos, in a line of products marking the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.
  • New sorts of properties, beyond characters and illustrators, are entering the category. The Royal Horticultural Society is including an adult coloring book, postcards, and a diary among its range of books with Michael O’Mara.
  • Adult coloring patterns are being licensed into a greater number of product categories. Allsorts is serving as the agent for Michael O’Mara Books, a leading player in the U.K. adult coloring market, with Pyramid on board for posters, and ceramics and textiles among the targeted categories. Artist Caleb Gray added adult coloring patterns to his line of full-color wall decals with Walls 360, while Deborah Valencia’s deal with Fox Chapel’s Design Originals imprint includes a coloring calendar as well as books. Publisher and licensor HCI publishes coloring greeting cards as well as coloring books tied to its Chicken Soup for the Soul line.

With all this competition and amid the maturation of the market, it is more difficult for individual character/entertainment properties and artist/illustrators—which represent the foundation of licensing in adult coloring—to stand out. In fact, the number of new deals involving character/entertainment properties has declined since the burst of activity in 2015, although new titles based on the likes of Harry Potter and the Moomins are still being released.

Artists and illustrators continue to enter the market. Tamara Kate’s first books with Eccolo Press were recently published, as were Valerie McKeehan’s and Robin Pickens’ with Fox Chapel and fabric designer Tula Pink’s with F+W. And artists such as Lisa Jane Smith, whose detailed illustrative work lends itself to the category, are creating collections of black-and-white line art to capitalize on the trend.

The question is how long this category can remain hot. Many observers believe it will be important going forward, even post-peak, and that there will always be opportunities as fans look for new patterns to color. But licensors just getting into the market now may be late to the game, unless they have something unique to offer.

If you want to read more about the adult coloring category, check out our previous coverage here and here.

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