App-makers draw a bead on adult coloring books
Since she got in on the adult coloring book craze two years ago, Cheri Brown has spent more than $400 on 50 books holding intricate sketches that she embellishes with Sharpies, colored pencils and gel pens.
But in November, Brown shifted spending to digital products. She paid $100 for mobile apps including Recolor and Colorfy, which Comscore researchers say together reached 2.3 million users in the U.S. in March, less than 10 months after launching.
Brown, who crisscrossed the world as a diver for 30 years, now relaxes at home in the Los Angeles area. Eight hours a day, usually settled in an armchair or curled in bed, she pecks with her right index finger at an iPad Mini, lighting its screen with the blues, greens and silvers of the sea.
Brown, 63, even plans to pay upward of $700 for a stylus and an iPad Pro. It stores more artwork, boasts a bigger screen and offers greater precision.
“If I had $100 to spend on coloring, I’d be more likely to buy into a really good app than buy coloring books,” she said. “You see where my purchases are starting to go.”
The brisk rise of coloring apps threatens the enormous growth of coloring book publishers, who sold 12 million adult and children’s coloring books in the U.S. last year – 1,100 percent more than in 2014, according to tracking firm Nielsen.
Coloring book enthusiasts insist they’d never abandon the pad and paper. But the concern is that, like Brown, people will become accustomed to the on-demand, dynamic enchantment of apps and ditch the old medium. That’s what has happened as other throwback trends enjoy revivals – for instance how young adults subscribe to Netflix, not cable, to watch Nickelodeon shows from their past.
The issue reflects a spreading realization: It’s dangerous for companies entrenched in making physical products or selling goods at bricks-and-mortar shops to not fight for online spending – and vice versa.
That explains why popular publisher Blue Star Coloring has found a partner to develop a coloring app, why movie studios are hawking apps filled with games and extra content, why rumors suggest online retail giant Amazon.com plans to open hundreds of bookstores and why many online shopping startups now rent mall space.
The colorist community is falling in line.
“There is a place for physical books,” said Ilkka Teppo, 40, chief executive and founder of Sumoing, the Helsinki, Finland, startup behind Recolor. “You can much more easily try color combinations and styles on digital, then when you have more time, you can have the experience on print.”
With coloring books, Brown’s move to digital offers one prediction of the future.
A friend’s Facebook post about coloring apps and the tediousness of books inspired her digital transition. Brown carried a big tote with pencils and books when taking her infirm mother to long doctor’s visits. Now, she slips the iPad into her purse.
After trying 20 of the 450 coloring apps, Brown settled on Recolor, paying a $40 annual subscription. It’s best, she says, because you can erase by touch, quickly access recently used colors and color virtual 3-D objects. She expects Recolor to add better effects, which can make a drawing look like it’s on canvas or other materials.
Teppo’s six-man team pursued Recolor almost a year ago after realizing three had wives hooked on coloring books. Smartphones, where tapping to insert a swatch of color could replace scribbling between lines, promised to make the art form easier. They launched in August.
“You’ll always have artists that think the only way to be an artist is to pull out their coloring set,” she said. “My heart is in the digital end of things.”
This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 2:41 PM with the headline "App-makers draw a bead on adult coloring books."