“Sherm put a really sterling offer on the table, with a program that put no limits on the number of books he’d publish,” said Cosgrove. The author’s quest ended when he met with Sherm Smith, who founded Heritage Builders in 2009.
When Cosgrove subsequently talked to publishers about picking up the Serendipity line, he discovered that many wanted to “cherry pick” and buy rights to only certain titles, which was not to his liking. When that outcry finally reached a fever pitch about three years ago, I negotiated with Penguin to have the rights reverted so I could bring the series back.” As the Serendipity titles fell out of print, the author received “a flux of letters, and later e-mails, from fans complaining that he couldn’t buy the books any more. In 1979, in hopes of “stepping back so that I didn’t have to be on the front lines all the time,” Cosgrove sold Serendipity Press to Price Stern Sloan, and concentrated on other publishing projects. 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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