Our story

We lost a publishing house. We kept the magic.

Made Of You is two siblings. Katia writes the books. Van makes the animals step off the page. We work from Greece, and we have done this once before.

Katia and Van at a table with the first Dinosaurs book — Katia and Van, with the first edition of the dinosaur book.

The first time: bitar, 2014 to 2020

In 2014 we founded bitar, an augmented reality publishing house in Greece, and its children's series livebooks. Eleven books. Katia wrote them and Van made them come alive on a phone or tablet screen. Kings of the jungle roared, the times tables came with dragons that hatched out of the page, and Little Red Riding Hood took a different path.

A Greek newspaper called the first dinosaur book “an editorial phenomenon”. The solar system book sold out its first printing in nine days. Parents wrote to say their kids would not put the phone down, and then, better, that they would not put the book down.

Every book had its own app, for Android and for iOS. Twenty-two apps. Every few months Google and Apple changed the rules, and every change meant rebuilding all of them. Then COVID came, and with it the economic squeeze that choked small businesses all over Greece. We could not keep twenty-two apps alive and pay the bills at the same time. In 2020 we closed.

Children crowding around a table at a book fair while a 3D elephant stands on the books — A book fair in Greece. An elephant on the table, and every kid in the hall trying to get closer.

Five of the livebooks titles laid out on a table — Some of the eleven livebooks: jungle animals, dinosaurs, the solar system, times tables, letters.

A 3D stegosaurus on the carpet of a book fair, next to the open book

A 3D dog standing on the books at the livebooks stand

The animals walked out of the books and onto the carpet, and the kids followed them around the hall.

The second time: no apps

The kids never stopped loving it. The machinery broke. So when we came back, we changed the machinery: the magic now lives in the browser. A child points any phone or tablet at a page, taps the link, and the dinosaur stands on the living room floor. No download, no update, no app store deciding whether our book still works next year.

Every animal is a real 3D model that stands in the room, and we publish through Amazon, so a family in Ohio or Adelaide gets the same square paperback as a family in Manchester.

We called it Made Of You, because the universe is made of you.

Why it matters to you

A book you buy today will still work in ten years. There is no app to be removed, no account to expire. The page, a phone or tablet, and the browser are all it needs.

What we learned, and what to check before you buy any augmented reality book: a parent's guide.

Katia and Van smiling by a lake — Katia writes the stories. Van makes them step off the page. Both of us, now.

Jungle Kings and Times Tables and Dragon Buddies, the English livebooks — Two of the livebooks also came out in English.

Say hello

Parents, teachers, journalists, other authors: we answer every message ourselves.