We know the holidays are a time when family is in town. And though you’ll have lots to do, it might be a nice investment of time for family that lives far away to sit in front of the computer for a bit and record some stories to be played back after they’ve gone home. With grandparents in town who might not own a webcam, or might not be as facile with the computer, this is the perfect time to sit them down in front of A Story Before Bed and have them record several bedtime stories. The grandchildren will be able to enjoy the stories over and over again even after grandma and grandpa have gone home.

From today through the end of of December 25th, 2009, all stories on A Story Before Bed are only $4.99 per recording. This is a 28% savings per recording. This could be a nice way to commemorate family visiting. In addition to the over 60 children’s picture books in our growing library there are several holiday selections including The Little Red Elf, Jingle Bells, and The 12 Days of Christmas (which even has a separate musical edition for the iPhone and iPod Touch).

The sale ends at the end of the day on Friday the 25th so be sure to make as many recordings as you can while the discount is in effect. Hope you enjoy your holiday.

We just got notice from Apple that The 12 Days of Christmas — Picture Story Book with Sing-Along Music has been released. Yay! It’s only $0.99. A modern instrumental version of the song accompanies Honey the Hippo and Raphael the Robin as they walk through all twelve days from the classic Christmas carol. Tell your friends.

(And if you like the iPhone app, be sure to check out the web edition of The 12 Days of Christmas on A Story Before Bed where you can record a video of yourself reading it to a special child in your life.)

I wish I could say that careful planning led us to having all these kid-focused offerings. The truth is more ‘organic’. We’ve shipped a suite of fun educational apps for toddlers — Hippo Hooray, and we’ve shipped A Story Before Bed, a service that lets parents and grandparents who can’t be near their kids at bedtime, record a video of themselves reading a children’s book. The kids can play the video back synchronized to the pages of the book on screen, anytime they like, as often as they like. You can see a demo here.

With the holidays coming, we decided to put out a little end-of-year treat for everyone. As of today A Story Before Bed now features the Christmas classic The 12 Days of Christmas. Since we produced this book in our in-house publishing division it only made sense to feature the characters from our Hippo Hooray series – Honey the hippo and Raphael the robin. Once the book started coming together, the next logical step was to launch it for the iPhone as well. So now you can record a video of yourself reading The 12 Days of Christmas on A Story Before Bed just in time for Christmas, and you can purchase The 12 Days of Christmas iPhone app that features all the artwork from the book and a modern instrumental soundtrack to which you can sing-along. The words appear on the page synchronized to the music so you won’t forget the lyrics.

While the book is available right now on A Story Before Bed, the iPhone app will be available as soon as the Apple apps team gives the go ahead. We submitted the app over a week ago so we’re crossing our fingers that it comes out any day.

We think this is a small first in shipping a new book on two emerging digital platforms. If folks are excited about releasing books on the iPhone and on A Story Before Bed, we’ll do more in the future. Let us know what you think.

Happy holidays from Jenny, Hillel, and Walter at Jackson Fish Market.

We’ve put our demos up on YouTube which will make it easier for some folks to watch them and see how grandparents who live far away can stay in touch with their grandchildren using A Story Before Bed. Here’s my dad reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff to my kids.

We had a nice report from a local Seattle TV station a couple of weeks ago. Here it is in its entirety.

The library of books available for you to record on A Story Before Bed keeps growing. We just released four new books just in time for the big sale weekend and the upcoming holidays:

• The Little Red Elf by Barbara Barbieri McGrath and Rosalinde Bonnet – a retelling of the Little Red Hen story with a Christmas theme.
• Jingle Bells by Iza Trapani – a global look at how Christmas is celebrated around the world.
• Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber and Leslie Evans – an autumn focused book. It’s not too late, there are still a few leaves on the trees.
• Winter Trees by Carole Gerber and Leslie Evans – a boy and his dog will help you identify seven different kinds of winter trees.

And to make it an even better idea to record some stories now, personalized children’s books from A Story Before Bed are now only $4.99 all Thanksgiving weekend. What better time to record a bunch of stories than when family is in town, and the books are on sale.

Happy reading and recording, and have a lovely Thanksgiving.

We have sparkly new versions of all our Hippo Hooray apps up on the iTunes store as of this morning. Hippo Hooray Shapes — Flashcards for Toddlers has new 3D shapes and a new mode where the child has to pick out which shape is different. Hippo Hooray Letters — Flashcards for Toddlers also has the new “which one is different” screens. And all four apps including Hippo Hooray Numbers — Flashcards for Toddlers, and Hippo Hooray Colors — Flashcards for Toddlers have some new goodness in them where the questions that come up feel more random. All in all, these updates should increase engagement which is key when you’ve got a long drive ahead of you and need to keep the kiddos occupied in the back seat.

And also, for a limited time, Hippo Hooray Shapes — Flashcards for Toddlers is FREE to download. So check it out.

Recently, A Story Before Bed became the first (and still only) service on the internet to let parents and grandparents separated from their kids, record video of themselves reading children’s stories synchronized to the pages of a book onscreen. All Thanksgiving weekend, stories on A Story Before Bed will be on sale for only $4.99 per recording.

Since launch, parents on business trips, grandparents who live far away, and military parents deployed away from their families are all recording stories for their loved ones on A Story Before Bed. Children are reading stories to their parents and grandparents too. Educators of the hearing-impaired are using A Story Before Bed to record American Sign Language videos accompanying children’s books.

Thanksgiving is a time when many families come together. With family in town, what better time to sit down and record a few stories using A Story Before Bed. Internet skills and capabilities are different in all folks. Sometimes it can help when grandparents are in town for parents to set up the computer and webcam and let grandma and grandpa record some bedtime stories for the grandkids right in the web browser. When the grandparents go home, the kids will still be able to watch grandma and grandpa read them bedtime stories over and over again.

Up until now, recordings on A Story Before Bed have been sold for $6.99 per recording. Because Thanksgiving is the perfect time to record more stories, from Thursday, November 26, 2009 – Sunday, November 29, 2009, all stories on the site are only $4.99 per recording. There are over fifty quality children’s books in the library right now with more coming all the time. Customers can preview any of the books on the site, and record any story they like for free. You only need to pay once you’re happy with your recording and want to keep it. 1-800 free live tech support will be open regular hours during the entire sale including on Saturday and Sunday if you need it. The price will go back up to $6.99 per recording on Monday, November 30, 2009.

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and happy recording on A Story Before Bed.

For those of you who don’t know, 826 Seattle is a branch of the national network of 826 centers across the country. In their own words:

“826 National is a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing. Each chapter offers drop-in tutoring, field trips, workshops, and in-schools programs — all free of charge — for children, classes, and schools with particular interests or particular needs.”

When we were developing A Story Before Bed, we immediately recognized that our mission of connecting distant families and children through reading was complementary to the 826 mission. We were thrilled when we called the folks at 826 Seattle and they generously agreed to provide a book for our library.

The Northwest Mythical and Unknown Creatures Organization Meeting #66 written by Noah Sather and illustrated by David Lasky is the latest addition to our collection of children’s books. Get a sneak peek into a meeting of some of the colorful mythical characters from the Pacific northwest including Seattle’s bridge troll, the living tree, and rain pixies. Royalties from purchases of recordings of this new book go to 826 Seattle to help further their mission.

Check out the book and check out 826 Seattle. They’re a great organization doing important work.

Dear high quality indy children’s book publisher:

We’re a high quality indy software publisher with a new site focused on children’s books. It’s called A Story Before Bed. The site lets parents and grandparents who can’t be with their kids at bedtime, record a video of themselves reading to their child synchronized to the pages of a children’s book.

Go see our demo story to see what your lovely book might look like on the site. Of course, every time someone pays for a recording of your book, you will get a royalty. And we even provide a link for the user to buy a physical copy of your book.

We’re thrilled to have our three inaugural indy publishers already signed up: BubbleGum, Charlesbridge, and Immedium, and be talking to several more as we speak. We’d love to hear from you as soon as possible. Send us mail at publishers (at) astorybeforebed (dot) com.

Not even a week after launching A Story Before Bed we had the honor of attending the Children’s Deployment Fair at the Fort Lewis military base just outside Tacoma, Washington. While we originally imagined our new site would be used by grandparents and parents reading to children, we were surprised to see how many families and teachers wanted to use A Story Before Bed to record kids reading the books themselves.

Fort Lewis has over 18,000 soldiers currently deployed. A large number of those soldiers are also parents. The Children’s Deployment Fair saw over 400 families come to make up a care package for their deployed family member. We set up a conference room at the elementary school where the fair was held with four computers running A Story Before Bed and had a line several families deep waiting to record stories to send to Dad. We’re proud that dozens of families recorded stories on Saturday, and hundreds more took coupons to record stories for free at home. While we understand that internet access with webcams is not always available where soldiers are deployed, at least some of these parents apart from their families should be able to record their own stories in return.

We want to thank Ken Swarner who graciously had us come to the event, and all the families who patiently waited in line to participate. If you’re a military family with a deployed family member, make sure to sign up for our Military mailing list to receive regular free recordings. If you work with military families and would like to talk to us about providing free recordings for a deployment fair in your area, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Enjoy some pictures of families connecting with distant loved ones using A Story Before Bed. Notice the last picture where it was all kids using the software, with more kids standing in line peering in. Neat!

We’re not quite done shipping new software this week. We’re excited to announce that Apple has approved our latest iPhone creation for toddlers – Hippo Hooray Numbers!

We listened closely to the feedback from our first three applications — Shapes, Colors, and Letters, and made Numbers even better. Not only are children asked to identify numbers 0-20, but there are counting screens mixed in where children are asked to count colorful party hats, cupcakes, and more.

Head over to the app store to get them while they’re hot!

This Saturday, the Fort Lewis Family Morale, Welfare and Recreation organization will be hosting a Children’s Deployment Fair at Evergreen elementary school on the Fort Lewis base. We’ll be there with laptops, webcams, and hopefully some decent internet access giving free recordings to as many families as possible. One thousand families are expected to show up to make care packages to send to a deployed parent overseas. We’ll set up a booth where the kids can record stories for free all day, and send links to their deployed parent to watch them reading over the net. In some cases, the parent who’s overseas may have left before their child learned to read.

While we originally conceived of A Story Before Bed for grandparents and parents to read to their kids, there’s been a clamor for kids to use the service to read to their parents and grandparents. We’re excited for the site to be used in any way that brings families closer who can’t be together.

In addition to free recordings, we’ll be giving away coupons to put in the care package, so those deployed parents who can get access to a computer and webcam with internet access can record their own stories to send to their children here at home. Families will also be encouraged to sign up for our Military mailing list for regular free offers.

If you’re an eligible family, we look forward to seeing you there. If you know of an eligible family, please pass the word. And if you’re a family with a deployed parent in the U.S. Military who would like us to provide free stories for a similar event, please get in touch with us to arrange.

Saturday should be fun!

Jenny, Walter and I are incredibly proud to announce our latest creation – A Story Before Bed.

A few years ago, I tried videotaping my parents reading stories to my young kids. My parents live on the east coast and I wanted my west coast children to have bedtime stories from their grandparents, even when they were far away. The effort was cumbersome and the results were not great. For the last several months, we’ve been working on creating a website that makes this process dead simple and creates beautiful results.

Anyone with a webcam and a web browser can choose a book from our library of licensed and digitized high quality children’s books, record audio and video of themselves reading that book, and share it with a special child in their lives. We’ve worked closely with our three launch publishing partners – Immedium, Charlesbridge Publishing, and Bubblegum Books to create a launch library of over 50 books. Our growing library includes over a dozen classics such as The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Frog Princess, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider, as well as state-of-the art modern children’s books like the Octonauts series created by Meomi and the first several books in the Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series. We even have a small start at our Spanish children’s library with Insectos para el Almuerzo and ¡Qué Nervios! El Primer Dia de Escuela.

These visionary publishers recognized the potential for personalized digital versions of their content. This new marketplace will not only bring them additional revenue, but reinforce the existing market for physical copies of their books. No other genre of books lends itself to this type of digital personalization. We’re working with our existing publishing partners in addition to new high quality children’s book publishers to expand our library – rapidly.

With live 1-800 technical support (uncommon for websites these days), A Story Before Bed is for parents away on business, remote grandparents, split families, military parents stationed away from their children, and even parents just going out for the night. Ultimately, we believe that these recordings of parents and grandparents reading stories to children may become family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation – “let me show you my grandpa reading me a story when I was little.” Some early users have even used the site so children can show off their reading skills to grandma and grandpa.

Military parents can sign up for our special mailing list, which offers free and discounted recordings for men and women in the United States armed forces stationed away from their children. And everyone can follow us on Twitter for deals, sales, and new book announcements. We’re currently offering recordings at a special introductory price of $6.99 per recording.

We hope you enjoy A Story Before Bed. It’s the first of its kind and there’s nothing else like it on the web. We’d love to hear your feedback. We intend to make it even better over the coming months and years.

Among other things, the iPhone has turned out to be a lovely device for small children to engage with technology. We have lots of parents of small children in our Jackson Fish Market extended family. Creating high quality, focused, educational, and entertaining software for toddlers on the iPhone seemed like a noble task (and with an end result that we could use ourselves — and test on our kids). Today we are proud to announce a trio of apps in our new Hippo Hooray series — Hippo Hooray Colors, Hippo Hooray Letters, and Hippo Hooray Shapes.

Hippo Hooray Colors, Shapes, and Letters are great ways to help young children learn their colors, shapes, and letters as well as keep them entertained. Colors, shapes, and letters appear in a variety of contexts on colorful backgrounds with rich imagery. A young voice encourages the child to choose the right colored object, shape or letter, helps them if they don’t pick right the first time, and pats them on the back when they choose correctly. Every so often a short video will pop up congratulating your child on doing a great job.

Amid beautiful illustrations, you’ll find Honey the Hippo and Raphael the Robin (yes, he paints!) peeking out from behind scenery, and coming out to encourage your child. (Keep an eye out for the monkey with the cupcake hat.) In addition to high quality artwork, the user interface is as simple as can be letting your toddler focus on cognitive, language, and motor development — not to mention fun.

Each of these new apps for the iPhone are available right now in the App Store for only $0.99. Search for Hippo Hooray, or click on one of the screenshots below and let us know what you think. Fun!

Hey people… do you think we’re screwing around here? We’re trying to ship some actual software. Here’s the requisite “nerds working from a cafe” photo. I’m told it will contribute to the eventual mythology.

No. I am not drunk (yet).

We’re releasing a new video every week from our small business conference — Small and Special. The most recent two include Oliver Chin, founder (and author) from Immedium — an independent children’s book publisher in San Francisco, and Jon Rimmerman, founder of Garagiste, the largest independent wine retailer in the Northwest. Both videos are inspiring, and give you a sense of what’s important to these two passionate and creative entrepreneurs. If you didn’t attend Small and Special, you can see what you missed.

The first is Startup Day happening in Seattle put on by Seattle 2.0. I’ll be speaking there on why to do a startup. To be clear, I have no idea why anyone else should do a startup, but I can tell you why we’re doing one. Startup Day is on Saturday, September 26th in Bellevue, Washington.

Also on the docket (though we can’t make it to this one) is LessConf by our good friends over at Less Everything. In keeping with their philosophy, the conference looks pretty simple and straightforward. LessConf is Saturday, October 17th in Jacksonville, Florida. I like how even the name of their event has less (actually fewer) characters. (I guess FewerConf wouldn’t be as catchy.)

Two great videos are up at Small and Special. First is Joe Mansfield from Engrave Your Tech talking about how he handled challenges in terms of the safety of his manufacturing process and how he migrated his business to a new process and set of products. Very inspiring, and beautiful engraved products.

Next is Rachel Venning founder of Babeland in Seattle. Despite not doing a business talk before, Rachel may have stolen the entire show with her talk about starting a sex toy store that’s now grown to a mini-empire. Her talk was super entertaining and inspiring as well.

Shhhh. Don’t tell Jenny and Walter.

My favorite florist agreed to grace us with her presence, her flowers, and most importantly, her story. This video of Nisha Kelen from Fleurish is from our recent Small and Special conference. Now you can see her entire talk. We’ll be posting a new video every week from the conference. Enjoy.

A few weeks ago we put on our first ever conference – Small and Special. It was an afternoon where we brought in eight entrepreneurs of businesses that were not only passion projects but financially successful entities in their own right. That combination (as you can imagine) is attractive to us and fundamentally a model for what we do here at Jackson Fish Market. Over 200 people attended the sold out event in person and we got lots of energetic and positive feedback from folks as well as a slew of excellent suggestions for improving future versions of the event. Check out the recap if you’re so inclined.

Thanks to the hard work of Bryan on the videos as well as Donald redoing the website, we’re now going to start posting the full videos of all the talks from the event. While I think the folks that attended in person got a singular experience, watching the videos should give you some flavor from the event as well as (hopefully) some inspiration. The first speaker at the event, Eric LeVine of CellarTracker is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Check it out, and if you like it, please tweet about it and tell your friends. Feedback welcome as always.

Small and Special was really the conference we wanted to attend. Hopefully after watching these videos you’ll feel the same way. We’ll release a new video each week. Enjoy.

Hey… we’re back at work today. Yay. Hope your summer was as lovely as ours. It took until the afternoon to write this blog post because I’m not entirely sure what to say other than that we’re back.

We’re busy working on all manner of software goodness for your enjoyment but we’re not ready to tell anyone about it. So, I guess we’re being teases. Sorry. We’ll try to be quiet until we have something interesting to talk about. Until then… back to work.