Silver Dolphin Books, a San Diego book imprint you’ve probably never heard of, tucked into a Sorrento Valley office park you’ve likely never driven by, is behind three of the country’s most read books. They have a profound theme: the strength of human connection. They have sold millions of copies, everywhere from Target to Costco to indie booksellers and they have millions of views on TikTok.
Two of those titles just beat James Patterson, Barbara Kingsolver and Anderson Cooper on USA Today’s Best-selling Booklist. Bath Book For Kids
Their target audience: babies. Sample titles: “You’re My Little Baby Boo,” “You’re My Little Pumpkin Pie,” and the book that started it all, “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug.”
If you are familiar with the “You’re My Little” book series, then you know exactly why tiny humans and their parents love them. If you are not, here is a quick primer: These are board books (with thicker pages) designed for kids under three about all sorts of babies (ghosts, butterflies, pumpkin pies) and their parents or caregivers. The pages have smooth cutout shapes perfect for fat little fingers to grab. The rhymes are easy. The illustrations are adorable — think the roundest eyes and rosiest cheeks and the smiliest smiles. Each book delivers a heartwarming message in about 100 words.
You are my baby bumblebee, You are so very sweet. You fill my days with lots of joy, Like honey, you’re a treat!
All together, the books in the series have sold more than 3.5 million copies — with “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug “ selling more than 1.5 million.
While this isn’t Harry Potter level of viral — that series has sold hundreds of millions of copies since 1997 — and in some cases several million within 24 hours of release — it’s considered a strong performance for this book category.
“That’s well above usual expectations for a board book,” said Deborah Halverson, a San Diego children’s author and editor who also worked as an editor at Harcourt Children’s Books for 10 years.
Take any sensation, from Taylor Swift to Corn Kid. When people become obsessed with it, that says as much about them and their world as the thing itself.
“When a board book is higher on the bestseller list than James Patterson and Barbara Kingsolver, I think you’re seeing a culture that is valuing books for children,” Halverson said.
That value shot up during the pandemic, when families stuck at home turned to books as a way to keep young brains active, but the success of these books shows that it has stayed high.
“Right now people are actively finding ways to add joy to their lives, and reading with their littlest ones is absolutely joy. And I think that’s what the publisher of this series is leaning into,” Halverson said.
It’s an interesting time to be a children’s bestseller, she said. On one hand, if a book clicks with readers, it can go viral as people talk about it and give it at birthdays and baby showers. And children’s books have potential staying power: if something makes it to “classic” status, it can keep selling well for decades.
But it’s also a tough market right now.
“The sales are there, but behind the scenes, it’s challenging.” Halverson continued: “Paper printing, shipping, all other aspects of the production chain has raised the cost of making a book. And the consolidations of publishers has reduced the number of publishers and editors to whom we writers and illustrators can submit projects for book deals.”
Sales are also complicated. According to Circana BookScan, total kids’ print sales this year through Dec. 9 are 216.3 million units, down 6 percent compared to last year. But kids’ board books sold 43.8 million year to date. That is flat, year over year — performing better than the rest of the kids’ book market.
Publishers Weekly, citing data from BookScan and Association of American Publishers, reported in July that while sales of consumer books overall were strong in 2022, children’s hardcover sales (a different category from board books) lagged behind their sales in 2019 and 2020.
Board books in particular tend to have low margins because they’re often priced low and are expensive to make — more so than children’s picture books — because of their materials, Halverson said.
How did this series, with 14 books, make it in this environment? Let alone sell more books than respected literary authors and mass market hits? Here are two ways to think about that.
In 2017, when the world felt very different, two editors at Silver Dolphin Books heard a pitch for “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug,” about lovable lady bugs and other backyard buddies, at a faraway place known more for its meaty pasta sauce than its literary culture: Bologna.
In fact, the Italian city is the site of a key yearly children’s book fair. It’s where publishers from all around the world come to exhibit their books — and where deals get made.
“We saw this one and were like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s got adorable illustrations, sweet rhyming text, it’s very sweet and sentimental.’ So it was a no-brainer to pick this book up and acquire the rights immediately,” said Kaitlyn Lockwood, the associate publisher and editorial director for Silver Dolphin Books. Silver Dolphin is an imprint of a San Diego publisher called called Printers Row Publishing Group.
They started out printing 60,000 copies.
“For a new series, that’s like saying we really believe in this one,” said Debra Mostow Zakarin, the vice president and publisher of Silver Dolphin Books. “We are going to put ourselves out there. Especially with something that has no history whatsoever, nothing like that has ever been put out there. I would say we were definitely like — ‘We’re standing behind this.’”
The book came out in early 2018. Two years later, the global pandemic hit.
Take a powerful universal emotion — the close bond between a child and caregiver — and throw in the uncertainty of a global pandemic and all the turmoil that has followed, and it makes sense that this kind of book would do well.
But the book appears to be transcending that.
Even in 2022, a while after schools reopened and the world jolted back to action, “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug” was still doing great — placing No. 8 on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover backlist chart (which tracks titles that are not new releases), with 424,903 copies sold, the trade magazine reported. It is on track to beat that this year, with 268,580 sales in the first half of this year, according to Publishers Weekly.
“We attribute the success of the series to many things, but mainly it’s sweet message, adorable art, and appeal to both parents and children,” Lockwood wrote in an email. “When you’re able to check all those boxes for a children’s book, it will be embraced by readers from all over. There are many best-sellers from major publishing houses, but also self-published titles on Amazon that sell tens of thousands. It shows that the message matters.”
Back in Bologna, the editors weren’t just shopping for a book. They were shopping for an idea.
“As a publisher, you’re always looking for something that could possibly be a series. You don’t want to just have a one-off title,” Mostow Zakarin said.
She has a lot of practice picking winners. She also heads another imprint of Printers Row Publishing Group — Studio Fun International, which creates licensed titles (with brands like Disney) — and was the global editorial director at Mattel and the executive editor at Dreamworks.
Versatility plus cuteness made “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug” a no-brainer buy for Silver Dolphin Books. The editors quickly realized that same pattern could apply to animals, holidays, desserts, you name it. So that’s what they did.
The second book in the series, “You’re My Little Pumpkin Pie,” has sold 585,000 copies.
Most books in the series start at $8.99, Lockwood added.
Silver Dolphin Books isn’t a small independent children’s book publisher. It is one of seven imprints of Printers Row Publishing Group — with 1,500 titles across those imprints — that is owned by ReaderLink, a large North American book distributor with connections to everything from dollar stores to independent bookstores to Amazon to Costco.
“Printers Row Publishing Group sells and distributes to all retail outlets including Value, Trade, Mass, Grocery outlets, and Clubs. We have a dedicated sales team with many years of experience and relationships in the industry,” Mostow Zakarin said.
In a job ad, ReaderLink describes itself as “North America’s largest book distributor with over 70,000 customer store locations. We move over 325,000,000 books per year and work with over 700 retailers and 500 publishers.”
Most of Silver Dolphin’s titles are “originated,” meaning that they start as ideas in-house — developed using market research for what readers want — and then get assigned to in-house writers, Mostow Zakarin said. (In an exception, Nicola Edwards and Natalie Marshall, the author and illustrator of “You’re My Little Cuddle Bug” and the other books in the series, are independent creators.)
Leveraging data, insight into reader response to the series and a broad distribution network, Silver Dolphin Books is expanding the “You’re My Little” series into boxed sets, a cloth book and an activity book. The licensing imprint is making “Disney Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: You’re My Little Nightmare.” A Cookie Monster version is in the works.
“There’s a book for every season,” Lockwood said at Silver Dolphin’s offices last month.
The publisher is also making a push for books that speak to specific cultures and interests.
“This is something that Kaitlyn and I are both very passionate about: being able to serve all children in all communities,” Mostow Zakarin said.
“You’re My Little Firecracker,” with a red, white and blue color scheme for the Fourth of July, aims to appeal to pint-sized patriots and their families.
“You’re My Little Christmas Cookie” and “You’re My Little Latke” mark Christmas and Hanukkah.
There’s potential for books tied to Chinese New Year or Hispanic Heritage Month, Lockwood said.
“It’s rare to have a series that can work in almost every market like that,” she added.
If you want to try writing a board book, here are a few ways to get started, based on tips from Halverson.
Read, read, read. Read the kind of books you want to write.
Try typing out the books you love. It’s a way to reverse engineer the structure and rhythms. How long are the sentences? How many words on a page?
Don’t do your own illustrations. Unless you’re Mo Willems.
Join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators or another industry group. Paid SCBWI membership, which gives access to a content library and discounted is $95 in the first year and $80 a year thereafter.
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