The Grandfather Thing Hits 20,000 on Amazon!
Wow, I just checked on The Grandfather Thing, and its rank is 20,694 on Amazon.
In publishing parlance, that really rocks. Anything under 40,000 is considered awfully good. This new status could be due to the fact that we excerpted a chapter on the GrandTimes web site for seniors. I'll keep checking in to see if it stays there more than a few days.
While checking the site, I realized that I recently bought 2 of the books that are currently in the Top 25 -- Collapse, by Jared Diamond, which is a 600+ page history/sociology/anthropology book, and French Women Don't Get Fat, which is a diet book.
I first found out about Collapse in The New Yorker, and a couple weeks later, a friend of a friend mentioned hearing Diamond give an interview on NPR. So in this situation, the publicists really worked the intellectual in-crowd, focusing on the "environmental impact" and "how we can learn from history and not repeat it" angle. Diamond's book -- which I haven't started reading yet -- apparently contains moralistic undertones about how we should be giving more thought to long-range land and resource management so that we too don't vanish from the planet.
This book is everywhere you look -- on the radio, in major market magazines, in newspapers -- and I think the key to its success is its alarmist p.o.v. Even the most subtle suggestion that society may self-destruct is one that taps into common fears, fears people will spend $25 in an attempt to ameloriate.
French Women Don't Get Fat first entered my awareness around Christmas, when I was feeling especially chubby. I spotted a feature article in the lifestyle section of the Hartford Courant. I made my mother read it, and then we become obsessed with finding the book.
Diet books are always popular, especially if you can offer a refreshing approach that involves little to no effort on the part of the dieter. This book is unique because it offers promises of chocolate and champagne without exercise. Somehow by the end of the process you should end up looking like Juliette Binoche. Hell, this book doesn't even need a publicity campaign. The word of mouth should be, and probably is, ferocious.
To recap. If you want to sell a lot of books:
1) Pick a controversial topic, then figure out how to tie it into current political policy later;
2) Promise the impossible.
In publishing parlance, that really rocks. Anything under 40,000 is considered awfully good. This new status could be due to the fact that we excerpted a chapter on the GrandTimes web site for seniors. I'll keep checking in to see if it stays there more than a few days.
While checking the site, I realized that I recently bought 2 of the books that are currently in the Top 25 -- Collapse, by Jared Diamond, which is a 600+ page history/sociology/anthropology book, and French Women Don't Get Fat, which is a diet book.
I first found out about Collapse in The New Yorker, and a couple weeks later, a friend of a friend mentioned hearing Diamond give an interview on NPR. So in this situation, the publicists really worked the intellectual in-crowd, focusing on the "environmental impact" and "how we can learn from history and not repeat it" angle. Diamond's book -- which I haven't started reading yet -- apparently contains moralistic undertones about how we should be giving more thought to long-range land and resource management so that we too don't vanish from the planet.
This book is everywhere you look -- on the radio, in major market magazines, in newspapers -- and I think the key to its success is its alarmist p.o.v. Even the most subtle suggestion that society may self-destruct is one that taps into common fears, fears people will spend $25 in an attempt to ameloriate.
French Women Don't Get Fat first entered my awareness around Christmas, when I was feeling especially chubby. I spotted a feature article in the lifestyle section of the Hartford Courant. I made my mother read it, and then we become obsessed with finding the book.
Diet books are always popular, especially if you can offer a refreshing approach that involves little to no effort on the part of the dieter. This book is unique because it offers promises of chocolate and champagne without exercise. Somehow by the end of the process you should end up looking like Juliette Binoche. Hell, this book doesn't even need a publicity campaign. The word of mouth should be, and probably is, ferocious.
To recap. If you want to sell a lot of books:
1) Pick a controversial topic, then figure out how to tie it into current political policy later;
2) Promise the impossible.
posted by Atkins Gal at 2/23/2005 06:06:00 PM
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