Colour of money: the rise of colouring books for grown-ups

The amateur artists can be found colouring in airport lounges, doctors’ waiting rooms and while they watch TV shows at home. They are forming meet-up groups at libraries and coffee shops so they can chit-chat as they doodle.

Colouring books for adults – a genre once considered little more than a novelty – are suddenly big business, a bright spot in the financial results of publishers and retailers alike. Nielsen BookScan research estimates that around 12 million were sold in 2015, a dramatic jump from the 1 million sold in the previous year.

Whether it is a short-lived fad remains to be seen. The new generation of books are typically filled with intricate black-and-white illustrations that are art themselves. While many find the act of colouring to be a calming distraction from hours spent staring at screens, some early adopters have doubts. Several reviewers on Amazon.com found the need to stay in the lines to be anything but soothing.

“Most of the pages are full of pictures that are so small I can hardly see the details to colour them, which causes more stress than if I hadn’t tried to colour in the first place,” wrote one reviewer.

While adult colouring book sales have escalated in the US over the past year, experts say the catalyst for the craze was the work of Scottish author Johanna Basford, whose 2013 title Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book began burning up bestseller lists with its detailed images of topiaries and flowers, and its challenges to find hidden items in the elaborate illustrations.

Basford and other authors have attracted legions of enthusiasts who are looking to de-stress – who see scrawling away at an image of a tree or an animal as a low-stakes way to channel imagination or keep their hands busy while they let their minds wander. “It’s nostalgic and it’s a bit old school,” said Mary Amicucci, chief merchandising officer at the bookseller Barnes & Noble. “It reminds people of their childhood.” Indeed, Elizabeth Himeles, 26, said she has taken up colouring as a way to tap into some of the creativity she used when attending arts camp as a kid.

“I don’t have a lot of time in life to do big craft projects, and sometimes I just want to unwind and not do something super active,” she said, adding that it’s not unusual for her to spend up to two hours a week colouring – and sometimes up to four hours in a week when she gets together with a colouring group she organised in the Boston area. “A lot of the people who come to my meet-ups are really interested in the idea of unplugging and being more mindful.”

It’s not clear whether the rise of adult colouring books has come at the expense of sales in other categories, but the impact of the craze can be seen in various corners of the retail industry: Barnes & Noble said that strong demand for colouring books and artist supplies has provided a tailwind for the chain’s total sales in the past three quarters.

The supermarket chain Walmart moved in November to add a dedicated four-foot section for adult colouring books in 2,000 of its stores. And Target started carrying the books in 1,300 stores in August and within months it had rolled them out to the rest of the chain. Initially, the big-box retailer was carrying only four titles in stores. This month, it will be up to 40.

If you look at Amazon’s bestselling books list, which is updated hourly, you are nearly certain to see several adult colouring book titles.

“I’ve been in this business for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Kathleen Schmidt, vice president at Running Press, which hurried to publish four adult colouring books last year.

The popularity of the books has pushed retailers into moving quickly to adapt. The crafts store Michaels has expanded its assortment to more than 150 and promises more this year.

Idalia Farrajota, senior vice president of merchandising at Michaels, said the store has developed exclusive titles to try to stay ahead of competitors, and has sought to expand beyond flora-and-fauna designs by adding Harry Potter and Star Wars adult colouring books to its line-up.

That the trend came on relatively fast has underscored how quickly and nimbly retailers and others have to move if they want to ride the latest wave. Take, for example, the story of Blue Star Colouring, a nascent publishing start-up.

Gabe Coeli, its chief creative officer, said the team published its first adult colouring book last March, initially believing it would be something of a “placeholder” business before it pursued other publishing ventures. That month, it sold just seven copies on Amazon of its first creation, entitled Stress Relieving Patterns. By April it had sold 15,000 copies, and by May the book had rocketed to the top of Amazon’s bestsellers list.

In 2015, the company sold more than 1 million books, including Stress Relieving Patterns and subsequent titles, and the team suddenly found themselves reassessing the hit they had on their hands.

“We didn’t realize what we were on the cusp of. We didn’t realize there was this big movement,” said Mr Coeli.

Janine Klein said she has long dabbled in colouring as a way to blow off steam; as a nanny, she often has colouring books within arm’s reach.

But she’s been grateful for the new wave of grown-up titles, including one she bought for herself and several friends called Unicorns are Jerks. “It helps to not have to colour princesses or Disney characters,” she said.

But others are perplexed by grown-ups taking cues from the kindergarten crowd. Robert Pela, a writer who also curates a contemporary art gallery in Phoenix, Arizona, is among that group.

“I’m a snob. But I’m also an adult, one who remembers when adults relaxed with Bourbon, not Crayolas and an outline of My Little Pony,” he wrote in a February article in the Phoenix New Times.

At Barnes & Noble, Walmart and Michaels, executives said the growing interest in adult colouring books has also prompted a surge in sales of a host of related art supplies. Indeed, Nielsen reports that total sales of coloured pencils shot up 26.3 per cent in 2015 – a sharp increase compared with the previous three years, when growth ranged from 1.3 to 7.2 per cent.

That pattern probably explains why Crayola, the Hallmark Cards-owned giant of kids’ art supplies, moved late last year to launch Colour Escapes, a line of chic colouring books and coloured pencils that it is aimed squarely at adults.

It seems likely that the retailing and publishing industries will keep looking for ways to capitalise on the colouring craze in 2016. Ms Amicucci said she believes this marks the beginning of a broader trend toward personal expression, adding that Barnes & Noble will be investing in similar categories such as painting, calligraphy and illustration.

Michaels, meanwhile, moved in the holiday season to put out colouring book-style note cards that Ms Farrajota said you can “personalise and send to your bestie and wish her a happy birthday. Colouring is not just about the book any more.”

©Washington Post