Over the next six months the chain went through four or five thousand dumps – all in produce departments. “They wanted them displayed in produce! So I created a disposable dump and popped the 12 titles into it, and Safeway immediately ordered 100 dumps. “My first account, which was Safeway, said that they didn’t want the Serendipity books to be in the book department,” he said. Within three or four years, Cosgrove recalled, the first 12 Serendipity books had sold three million copies, and the author, a self-described “one-man band,” was engaging in some inventive marketing strategies. So I said, ‘OK, then I’ll publish it myself.’ I found a printer, and Serendipity was off and running.”Īnd running at quite a speedy clip. They liked the book, but thought the art was too colorful, and wanted to do it in duotone. “Within a few months, I had found Robin James to illustrate it, and sent it off to a big New York publisher. “I really liked the story I wrote, which became Serendipity, the first book in the series,” he said. Frustrated at what he found to be the lack of picture books that are fun to read and also convey positive values, he took it upon himself to write one. In 1973, Cosgrove, who was at the time working in finance, was shopping at bookstores for his then three-year-old daughter. Cosgrove’s series, in fact, had an indisputably serendipitous start.
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