Skywriter Media has sold two kids animated series, Camp Lakebottom (pictured) and Vivi, to 9 Story Entertainment, to focus on series development and an evolving eBook platform.

The deal will see 9 Story Entertainment take over the production and distribution of Camp Lakebottom for Teletoon Canada and Vivi, a co-production with Mixer for TVO.

Skywriter Media CEO Kevin Gillis will remain attached to the twin projects now parked at 9 Story as an executive producer.

Gillis tells Playback Daily the deck-clearing transaction will allow Skywriter Media to redeploy precious capital to its eReading division, Skyreader, and less-costly live action and animation TV development.

“We’re not a large company. We’ve been focusing more in last year away from producing the shows and more into developing the shows and into the Skyreader business, which is a big focus for us,” he explains.

Both shows got series orders last fall, and Gillis at that time started talking to Vince Commisso and his team at 9 Story about co-producing the series.

Eventually, Gillis adds, the conversation settled on 9 Story producing and distributing the shows on its own.

Commisso says Camp Lakebottom and Vivi fit the 9 Story brand.

“Not only are these terrific series being produced for leading Canadian broadcasters with which we have wonderful relationships, both will be high quality, complimentary additions to our growing catalogue of internationally distributed content,” he explains.

The course change at Skywriter comes as it continues building its Skyreader media business, most recently by pacting with in-house kids book writer Leslie McGuirk and the San Diego Zoo on a series of three interactive eBooks titled Wiggens at the San Diego Zoo.

Gillis says there’s more potential upside for Skywriter if it puts capital into developing series to the point they’re ready for production.

In addition, rolling out the Skyreader eBook platform enables Skywriter to acquire new and catalogue book rights, which include TV rights that can be developed.

Gillis adds that developing an eBook first, before considering a TV show, enables market-testing of characters before moving forward with TV series.