Westlake Village-based Bent Willow Publishing, a relative unknown in the publishing world, says positive pre-release sales and interest in its first book, “The Moon in My Room”, indicate a solid entry into the children’s book market. The book, one of six planned in a series called “Willowbe Woods, Campfire Stories and Sing Alongs,” doesn’t officially hit the shelves until January. But already Bent Willow has secured a nationwide, in-store reading tour with Borders Books & Music following a successful first reading at the company’s Thousand Oaks store in September. Toy and novelty manufacturers have called to express interest in developing a character line for the retail market, and an additional 15,000 copies of the book have been printed to meet expected demand. “I knew it was going to be successful, but I don’t think I knew exactly how successful,” said Bill Wallen, a former Columbia Tristar executive who launched Bent Willow in January of this year, along with Patrick Davidson, former senior vice president for The Disney Channel. Wallen and Davidson, along with Wallen’s daughter, Ila, also the book’s author, started Bent Willow’s parent company, Wallen Davidson, a marketing and promotional firm for the film and cable industry in 1999. Their plan was to earn enough income to start a publishing house and get the book series off the ground. The elder Wallen said executives for kid’s programming at Disney, Nickelodeon and big-name publishing houses all expressed interest in the Willowbe project from the start. Instead, they have kept the project in house and managed to earn close to $1 million of their own money through Wallen Davidson projects. “Whenever the book was shown to someone like Disney or Sony or a publisher, the usual reaction was, ‘This was amazing but, of course, we would have to buy the whole thing,”‘ said Wallen. “So we said, ‘It’s not for sale.’ We are leaving that world so we could do this on our own. And in order to do that, we had to raise enough money so that the business side of me said we have enough to go the course.” The first book features a bear named Will, who takes readers on a journey through the fictitious land of Willowbe Woods in order get advice and ultimately overcome his fear of the dark. He eventually learns that all he needs is a simple nightlight. According to Sue Zussman, area marketing manager for Borders, a typical in-store reading will draw about 30 people and produce sales of about 20 books. Ila’s “pajama mania” reading in September, which featured an actor dressed as Will, drew an audience of about 250 and the store sold more than 100 copies of the book. “All I can say is the book is doing very well,” said Zussman, who is based in Thousand Oaks. She said she pushed for Willowbe because of its local appeal and local roots. “This is a 100-percent Valley based project, and that’s what we were drawn by,” said Zussman. “We want to grow our book from the community. Yes, Borders is a big chain of books, but we are also about what’s homegrown.” Ila’s next reading is set for Dec. 1 at the Glendale Borders store, and another is scheduled for Dec. 7 in Northridge. Bill Wallen said he plans to spend $5 million to $10 million between now and next spring preparing for the launch of the video and CD series for “Moon,” and anticipates expanding his staff from about 12 to 20. “We expect to sell between 100,000 and 200,000 copies of our first book in January, but everyone is saying it’s going to be higher,” said Wallen. So far, the only products set to hit the retail market are a nightlight and a line of “Willow wear,” also due out in January. But Wallen said Bent Willow has been barraged by marketing firms hoping to land licensing agreements for the Willowbe characters. “Believe me, we’ve been deluged,” said Wallen. “And I know that there’s an opportunity for us to develop high quality toys for our franchise, but we want to be sure that we craft the consumer product line very cautiously so that it reflects the same degree of integrity we have achieved in the book. We are growing a franchise here, but we are not a Disney.”