Three Book Marketing Bullets

• Back Pages Books, a two-year old book emporium in Waltham, Massachusetts, is trying to establish a local author and at the same time show its marketing muscle.  Proprietor Alex Green has vowed to sell out the entire first print run of 1000 copies of Who by Fire, Who by Blood by Jon Papernick.  The book is now published only in Canada.  Here's what Green told the Boston Globe:  "If I can prove to a publisher that a 1,000-square-foot bookstore in a suburb of Boston can presell an entire print run before it's released, then maybe American publishers will take a second look," said Green. "Maybe they look at it and say that maybe if 1,000 people want [a book] from this small bookstore, then maybe thousands of people across the country will buy it."  Bravo for Mr. Green's moxie.  Gotta love those independents.  (Thanks to Nextbook for the tip.)
• This Sunday's New York Times Book Review ran a story on the "combination of 'The Gong Show' and speed-dating" that was the try-outs for the Jewish Book Network last month.  And I was there!  Like my 100 or so fellow authors, I had 120 seconds to tell volunteers why they might want to invite me to their Jewish Book Fairs to discuss my book.  In her article Rachel Donadio gives (deserved) kudos to impresaria Carolyn Starman Hessel, director of the Jewish Book Council.  (A poster from the Council by Maurice Sendak hangs on my office wall; it shows a Where the Wild Things monster reading a book of Shalom Aleichem stories to a boy and a girl.) 
• I'll be signing books at Kepler's in Menlo Park this Thursday, June 28 from 1 to 4 and again at Borders in downtown Palo Alto from 12 to 4 this Saturday, June 30.  Come on by.

Comments

[BookWhirl]

This looks good, especially when you're taking a book marketing campaign seriously. Hope you had a successful campaign.