What Makes a Picture Book Mega-Hit?

It’s not that it’s impossible to predict the “next big thing” in children’s literature, but it’s also not exactly a hard science. Indeed, whenever a publisher starts spending beaucoup de bucks on a given title (hardcover f&gs, a serious marketing campaign for a debut author, etc.) I cringe a bit. They’ve made their bets and they’re willing to bank on them. I, on the other hand, make my own kinds of bets. As a Materials Specialist it’s my job to figure out how many copies of any given title sh...