Over the past year, publishing houses in Taiwan have jumped on board the bandwagon of an exploding new market for therapeutic coloring books. For the past two or three months, during which this fad has reached new peaks, publishers have been coming out with 30 to 40 new titles per month in this genre.
The tops of the bestseller lists have been dominated by therapeutic coloring books (TCBs). Books.com.tw at one point had several top spots occupied by TCBs, while at the Eslite bookstore chain there was a point at which all ten of the Top Ten bestsellers in the “living and leisure” category were TCBs.
Top Secret
This whole amazing phenomenon started with Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book.
Secret Garden was created by British writer and artist Johanna Basford. Sales of the book, her first venture into the coloring book genre, began to grow rapidly at the end of 2014. It has done especially well in Brazil and mainland China, where it has sold 1 million and 3 million copies respectively—truly astonishing numbers.
Market response in Taiwan has likewise been dazzling. The traditional-Chinese edition came on the market in February of 2015, and by mid-October total sales were already approaching 500,000.
This completely unanticipated fad for coloring books has been described by some as “dumbfounding.” Even Wang Jung-wen, founder and chairman of Yuan Liou Publishing, the company that publishes the local Taiwan edition, has admitted, “It’s eye-popping!”
It is a rare book indeed in the history of Yuan Liou, which in 2015 is celebrating its 40th year in existence, that has sold such a high volume in such a short time. That is why Secret Garden has been included in the company’s list of “40 Major Books” to commemorate its quadragennial.
“The chairman at first simply couldn’t understand how a book that is almost nothing but black outlines, with almost no words at all, could sell so well,” recalls Yuan Liou’s managing editor Wang Ruolan with a laugh. But the chairman eventually discovered that coloring books have stress-relieving properties, and on his Facebook page he began to call on other corporate leaders to create spaces for drawing and coloring, places where employees could empty their brains out for a while and genuinely relax.
The color of money
It was Wang Ruolan, with her discerning eye for value, who decided to get the publishing rights to Secret Garden for Yuan Liou. Noting that she studied art history in university, she explains that she decided to publish a coloring book because of her own interest in drawing and painting.
In 2013, Wang introduced “Zentangle®” books, then quite a fad in the US, into Taiwan. In fact, the company not only put out the books, they also hired a teacher to hold classes to instruct acolytes. Wang discovered that many people are interested in drawing and sketching, not only because it is fun and absorbing but also because it can give people a sense of accomplishment, of making something with their own hands. From there she decided to bring coloring books, which have even lower barriers to entry, into their publishing house. “For Zentangles, you have to come up with your own ideas and create your own patterns. Coloring books don’t require you to do any compositional work: just fill in the colors and you’re an artist!”
Adult coloring books have been around overseas for seven or eight years, and although they have not been bestsellers, they have shown staying power in terms of steady long-term sales.
Before publishing Secret Garden, Wang surfed through different coloring books online for more than half a year before she happened upon Basford’s book, which she recognized at once to be a horse of a different color. “The author has a drawing style that shows great attention to detail, and combines modern and classic approaches—that’s what makes Secret Garden stand out from the crowd.”
Based on her own observations, Wang has concluded that two major groups of people are the driving force behind this wave of coloring book popularity in Taiwan: young women (aged 16–22) and middle-aged women (45–60).
The term “young women” includes both high-school and university students. According to sales data from books.com.tw for January to August of 2015, Secret Garden was the most popular book purchase for female university students. Even among male university students, it finished sixth, suggesting that they might also be an important force behind the book’s success. Wang wittily infers, “Most of them were probably buying it for their girlfriends!”
Pop goes the coloring book
The “pop–media synergy effect” has been especially evident in the fad for coloring books.
First, there was the very obvious impact of “product placement” in Korean television drama series. For example, in the early 2015 series The Producers, there were occasional shots of the leading actress coloring in a coloring book. In Blood, a series featuring a vampire/doctor which also aired in early 2015, the male lead used coloring books to distract himself whenever the urge to strike for blood came over him.
Pop music idol Key, a member of an in-vogue Korean boy group called SHINee, has also made important contributions. He posted colored pictures on his Facebook page, explaining that making them helped him deal with the death of his grandmother. As soon as the images hit the web, many of the group’s fans instantly took up the hobby.
One of Yuan Liou’s team, planning supervisor Abby Kao, confesses that the Korean pop idol was the “key” to her initial interest in adult coloring books. “For a period there when I was most obsessed, I would color every night until my wrist and hand were actually in pain!” Most interesting was her discovery that she could fall asleep more easily if she did coloring just before going to bed, suggesting to her—quite to her surprise—that the hobby can help people relax and find calm.
Taiwan has long had a huge cadre of fans for both Korean drama and K-Pop, and these have been recently joined in their promotional efforts by a Taiwanese TV chat show called SS Xiaoyan Night, which had one episode in which guest celebrities colored in images from Secret Garden, and then “experts” suggested conclusions about each celebrity’s character or personality based on the colors they had chosen to use. Sales of the book saw an upward jolt after the episode aired, with over 10,000 copies being bought in the following week.
Color my world
Coloring, it seems, is sweeping the nation. Besides the impact of the mass media, another reason for its success is surely that it has a “low barrier to entry.” Anyone can easily master it, male or female, young or old, and find diversion and release from stress.
Of the many middle-aged women who are absorbed by coloring books, some simply enjoy the aesthetically pleasing images and outcomes, but others are convinced that coloring books have therapeutic properties.
Lin Yinghua, 45, is director of marketing at a company that makes outdoor recreation products. Her job puts her under a lot of pressure, and she likes to divert herself from work by applying tints to paper, an activity which, she finds, clears her head.
Lin is well-equipped for her hobby, currently having five coloring books in her possession as well as one set of 48 variously-hued water-based markers and another of 76 oil-based markers, giving her inexhaustible options to let her imagination roam. “An hour before bedtime I take out my colored pencils or my markers and begin to color, and while I’m doing it my brain doesn’t think about anything, whereas before I would always be ruminating over this or that.”
Wang Ruolan says that even within Yuan Liou’s publishing department, for a time she also saw colleagues working with coloring books from time to time. The sight of an impatient editor making an angry telephone call was regularly followed by that of someone with their head buried in a coloring book, looking for a little emotional solace.
For the elderly, meanwhile, coloring books are a good way to pass the time, and they can be “companions” to help cope with loneliness.
“Grandma Su,” aged 82 and living alone in Kaohsiung, has become “hooked” on coloring books.
A few months ago, her daughter, who lives in Taipei and often worries that her mom may get bored and lonely at home in Kaohsiung, sent her mother the three hottest coloring books on the market as a gift. Grandma Su left them sitting around untouched for a over a month, but one day she just found herself in the mood to give them a try, and since then, much to her delight, she has gotten more and more absorbed in the hobby, as well as more skilled. Daughter Su sighs with chagrin, “Now even if I go home to visit her, she’s so wrapped up in her coloring books that she hardly notices me!”
Childhood through tinted glasses
These days there are coloring books on the market on almost every conceivable theme, including plants, insects, birds, architecture, and urban design, as well as books featuring the works of famous painters like Van Gogh. There are even tie-in coloring books for movies like Harry Potter and The Assassin. There is something for every taste and interest.
These days the landscaper in the Secret Garden has no worries about getting lonely. Yuan Liou’s Facebook fan page for the book has more than 20,000 enlistments, with many people sharing their own “masterpieces.” One especially remarkable contribution is a work posted by a famous hair stylist named Kevin, in which he used eyeliner to add the hues to the image.
Others use the fan page to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences related to coloring. For example, there are stories about how coloring books have helped people fight through relationship break-ups or depression. The fact that these have gotten a lot of “likes” suggests that those who post these anecdotes represent only the tip of the iceberg of the positive psychological impact of coloring books.
Wang Ruolan says that coloring books are especially useful for patients in art therapy, because they require the individual to color inside the lines, “and when you are forced to keep the colors within specific spatial limits, you can’t afford to let your mind wander to other things, so it’s easier to stay emotionally centered.”
“Therapeutic” effects will of course vary depending upon the individual, but for virtually any adult, working with a coloring book brings back a kind of joyful feeling from childhood that he or she is likely to have long forgotten. It’s not for nothing that a life filled with interest and pleasure is described as “colorful”!
Yuan Liou Publishing managing editor Wang Ruolan was way ahead of the curve in feeling interest in the adult coloring book Secret Garden, but her decision to publish a version in Taiwan has helped unleash a craze for the genre.
Lovers of Secret Garden post their works and thoughts on the book’s enormously popular local Facebook fan page. (courtesy of Liu Huina)
Lovers of Secret Garden post their works and thoughts on the book’s enormously popular local Facebook fan page. (courtesy of Zhang Wenwen)
Abby Kao, a planning supervisor at Yuan Liou, finds coloring to be very relaxing, helping her clear her mind of the day’s worries and stress.
To do a job right, first you need the right tools. Booming sales of coloring books have driven increased purchasing of peripheral items like colored pencils.
The “Secret Garden Pop-Up Shop” at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park has been a magnet for children who want to get a first-hand experience on the spot. (courtesy of Yuan Liou Publishing)
In the act of adding colors to paper, your own life can become more colorful as well.
There is even a movie tie-in coloring book drawing on the Tang-Dynasty aesthetics featured in the film The Assassin. (courtesy of Spot Films)
