Smart Moves Take ‘Dummies’ Beyond Books

Dummies Man -- the spiky-haired character on the cover of the “For Dummies” how-to books -- is downright ubiquitous these days.

There’s Flower Bulbs for Dummies, Smart Booster Cables for Dummies, Refractor Telescope Kit for Dummies, Acoustic Guitar Starter Pack for Dummies and Complete Fuel System Cleaning for Dummies for your car.

Next up: VOIP Phone Kit for Dummies. The kit, which will be made and sold by Coral Gables, Fla.-based Lingua Online this fall, will help you set up your voice over Internet protocol online phone service.

John Hislop, associate director of licensing at John Wiley & Sons Inc., the business and technical publisher of the “Dummies” line, said the VOIP kit was a natural licensing partner. VOIP is just the kind of useful but complex product or service that can leave intelligent people feeling flustered, he said.

“The ‘Dummies’ brand is famous for helping consumers tackle new technology,” Hislop said, adding that it made “perfect sense” to partner with Lingua Online to market it.

Wiley is perhaps better known as a global publisher of scientific, technical and medical books, with such weighty titles as “Computer-Intensive Methods for Testing Hypotheses,” as well as textbooks and business books. It also publishes CliffsNotes and the Frommer’s travel guides.

Its “Dummies” line, which it acquired in 2001 as part of its purchase of Hungry Minds Inc., has been growing by leaps and bounds. Hislop declined to release financial figures. He said the licensing end of the business was still relatively small but growing. Wiley, a public company, doesn’t break out sales for the line.

“Dummies” got its start in 1991, when IDG Books, a unit of technology publisher International Data Group Inc., put out “DOS for Dummies,” a how-to guide for help with Microsoft Corp.’s early operating system.

It quickly became a huge seller, and today there are about 1,000 “Dummies” titles and 150 million copies in print. IDG Books later changed its name to Hungry Minds and added cooking and travel books.

The licensing side of the “Dummies” line has been gathering steam. Today there are about 75 deals in place with licensing partners, of which more than 40 were signed in Wiley’s last fiscal year, which ended April 30.

Wiley works with each partner in developing the products, marketing plans and instructional materials to make sure they’re consistent with the humorous and straightforward style of the how-to books, Hislop said.

Wiley receives an initial fee as well as royalty payments from the products, which are manufactured and sold by the licensing partner.

Many of the products come with the companion book or a “Dummies”-branded instructional package to help buyers figure out how to use it, such as a telescope, flower bulbs for your garden or even cleaning additives that you put in your gas tank.

The “Acoustic Guitar Starter Pack for Dummies,” made by Dallas-based M&M; Merchandisers Inc., comes with steel-string guitar, electric tuner, strap, instructional DVD and a “gig bag” to carry the instrument to performances -- assuming you’re a fast learner.

Charles Riotto, president of the New York-based International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Assn., known as LIMA, calls the growing licensing activities by the “Dummies” people “a great way for them to create additional exposure for their brand.”

More important, Riotto said, “it also takes them from being just in bookstores to being in all kinds of other stores such as music stores and other places where these products are sold.”

Not every deal, however, is a keeper. A license recently expired, and won’t be renewed, for the “Bachelorette Party Kit for Dummies” and the “Honeymoon Getaway Kit for Dummies.” The latter included jasmine-scented massage oil, peach-scented bubble bath and a hibiscus floating candle. Hislop said the firm was focusing on bigger categories.