This is a great piece by Denny Hatch... How he (as a green junior copywriter) started a children's book club, which at the initial test, was a big success!
Management tinkered with it, to turn it into a failure...! (And they didn't even go back to the proven, winning formula...)
What I like about this is, I believe, a similar business could succeed today.
They took public domain children's books
for free, and added colored illustrations (many which also seemed to be historical public domain illustrations).
The reason why I feel this could work today is, although many people now buy ebooks, one of the classes of books where people still like to buy printed copies are children's books. There's something better about the experience of a child holding a book and reading it, seeing the colored pictures in natural light, and turning the pages, compared to squinting at everything in the blue-light stare of an electronic screen...
Worth a read, in my opinion!
How a Successful Direct Marketing Business Was Destroyed, by Denny Hatch
http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/...marketing.html
Best wishes,
Dien