“What have you heard about this one?”
The seven words that can make or break a new book.
As I might have mentioned once or two thousand times, my new thriller is published July 22nd. It’s called The Confessions and, ahem…
“Not since Michael Crichton entertained and thrilled readers with science-driven novels like Sphere and Jurassic Park has there been anything this frightfully fun.”
At least that’s according to Library Journal which - and I still can’t quite believe this - just gave The Confessions one of its coveted ‘starred’ reviews.
!!!
Of course, as someone who is somehow cursed with both a monstrous ego and crippling imposter syndrome, I am rushing to share that quote with you on the assumption there has been some ghastly administrative error and the review will swiftly be corrected or withdrawn.
Pre-order your copy now, while it’s still “an addictively readable thriller with plenty of white-knuckle moments and jaw-dropping twists”!
If I’m lucky, the weeks and months before publication will be full of these kind of emotional moments - both highs and lows. For every “holy sh*t!” review that sends me dancing through my kitchen at 1am, I know there will inevitably be a brutal pan that derails me for days. For every encouraging spike of pre-orders there will surely be a terrifying slump. The Confessions will be submitted to, and rejected by, all manner of book awards. There will be enthusiastic TikToks! Followed by mean comments!
I say ‘if I’m lucky’ because, as Oscar Wilde famously said, there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A maxim never truer than in book promotion.
To that end, this coming Wednesday I’m heading down to Del Mar for an event hosted by the California Independent Booksellers Alliance (CALIBA) where I’ll be pitching The Confessions in person to my fellow CA-based booksellers.
I’m really excited for the event because, since opening the store, I’ve come to understand the incredible power that indy bookstores and booksellers have to turn a book from a sleeper into a hit, and to keep a successful book selling steadily long after it has fallen off the bestseller charts.
A few examples: If you’ve been into the store recently, and asked for a mystery or thriller recommendation, you’ve likely heard me rhapsodize about Keigo Higashino’s Malice, Laura Sims’ How Can I Help You, or Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman. If you like golden age mysteries, I’ve almost certainly tried to nudge you towards The Affair At Little Wokeham by Freeman Wills Crofts, which is like a Columbo mystery written in the 1920s.
What do these recommendations have in common? Well, for one thing they are fantastic novels, and I know you’ll love them. But for another, they were all books that were first recommended to me or Sarah by other independent booksellers.
Sarah heard about Malice from Christopher’s Books in San Francisco. I picked up How Can I Help You from a recommendations table at The Bookshop in Nashville. Geiger came from either Christophers or from The Writers’ Block in Vegas (it was a while ago). Little Wokeham was from Dog Eared Books in San Francisco.
Just yesterday I recommended Little Wokeham to another indy bookseller across the country. I think she’ll love it, and start hand-selling it to her customers. And so the chain will continue.
And what is every link in that chain worth for an author? Let’s consider some numbers:
We sold a little over 250 copies of Higashino’s Malice last year in paperback, most of them from either the front recommendation table or through Sarah or me hand-selling it to customers. We’ll likely sell even more this year, now that Macmillan has raised our credit limit.
According to Bookscan (the database that records national book sales), Malice sold a total of 1665 copies in paperback last year, country-wide. That’s pretty decent, given the book has been out for more than a decade.
But still, that means our little <1,000 square foot store accounted for 15% of all sales last year of Malice. And, if the numbers hold, then by the end of this year we’ll likely be responsible for almost 5% of all US copies of the book ever sold in paperback. Again, this is a book we only knew about thanks to that initial recommendation from Christopher’s Books.
Or how about this: According to Bookscan, Geiger sold just 53 copies in hardcover country-wide last year. One day I’m going to insist that someone at Hachette explain to me why they’re not promoting this incredible thriller better to booksellers, and why it’s not available in paperback. But still - we have it in hardcover and we love it and so, of those 53 copies sold nationally, our little shop accounted for 35 of them. That’s 66% of all sales last year!
There are roughly 2500 independent bookstores in the US. You can imagine the difference it can make to sales when a few hundred of them start telling customers about a book they love, either a new release or a semi-forgotten backlist title. (For the brilliant Geiger, if 250 other stores sold the number of copies we did last year that would be 8,750 additional hardcover copies.)
We live in an era of micro-micro-micro media. A gazillion Tiktoks competing with a billion Instagram posts with a million Substack posts. So much noise, so little signal. On the other end of the attention spectrum, most people don’t ever see the thoughtful reviews in Library Journal or the similarly influential Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, or Booklist - except as truncated quotes on a bookjacket. (Geiger, with its 53 hardcover sales last year, got a starred review in Publishers Weekly. This is not mentioned on the cover.)
Goodreads and Amazon reviews are so polarized as to be irrelevant (we live in a world where every book is destined for 3.6 stars based on 1,000 reader reviews). Maybe the NY Times book review still has real mass-market clout, or NPR, but I’ve seen rave reviews in/on both that haven’t translated to a single customer order in store.
Meanwhile, in-store word of mouth and hand-selling still works, every single time. I see it every day, when a customer overhears me excitedly recommending, say, Wired For Story or Prey to someone else and asks “what was that book you were just talking about?” Ten minutes later we’ve sold a half dozen copies.
Of course the inverse is true too. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched a customer pick up a critically acclaimed book or the latest hardcover from a celebrated author only to have their companion interject: “Oh, no, I hated that one!” And back on the shelf it goes. Same when a customer asks for my opinion on a book that I really couldn’t get in to. My frown speaks volumes. No sale.
No amount of positive reviews or media appearances will ever be strong enough to counter that single moment of negative word of mouth at the point of sale.
Just as no starred review or NPR appearance can ever beat the power of indy booksellers handing a copy of your book to a customer.
I’m thrilled and grateful that (so far) reviewers and advance blurbers are enjoying The Confessions. Obviously I am. But the verdict I’m really waiting for - the approval I’m desperately craving - comes from indy booksellers and their customers.
Which brings me back to my imposter syndrome, and the only downside of being an author with his own bookstore.
Recently I sent a note to a very popular crime author - a fan letter, really - to share how well his latest novel was selling in store. I started my note by saying that I was sure he’d had dozens of similar notes from bookstores, but figured I’d add to the heaps of praise.
His response shocked me: He said he almost never heard directly from booksellers about whether they liked his books, or what the response was from customers. The only indication he had about in-store buzz came via his publishers (who also didn’t really know) and from raw sales figures.
Because of course he doesn’t own his own bookstore.
Come July 22nd I won’t be able to escape the in-store word-of-mouth reaction to The Confessions, for good or ill. I’ll get to watch as folks pick up the book I worked for months to write and edit - to glance at the blurbs on the cover and (knowing Sarah) the little index card ordering them to buy it. They’ll open the cover, scan the opening paragraphs. And then finally they’ll turn to their friend, as I’ll brace myself for those seven terrifying words. The only question that really matters…
“What have you heard about this one?”