Next week Algonquin Books in Chapel Hill is looking to spread the love to indies and backlist titles when it kicks off its monthly Lucky 7 promotion with seven e-books for $1.99 each. Although the marketing effort is open to all vendors, online and paperback marketing director Michael Taeckens says, “We really want to get across the message that when it comes to e-books, you can buy them at your favorite indie bookstore. You can go to Regulator, Northshire, or Three Lives and get e-books. It’s also a way for us to showcase a lot of backlist titles, going all the way back, books from our archives so to speak.”
To make sure that the discounted e-books don’t interfere with print sales, Algonquin will not be selling bestsellers like Water for Elephants or Reliable Wife at $1.99. Barring those and depending on the theme—March is for staff picks, April travel—readers can expect to find just about any mix of seven Algonquin titles.
For February’s Author Crush, to run from February 13-19, Algonquin invited seven authors (including Robert Olmstead, Amy Stewart, and Hillary Jordan) to pick a favorite book from its backlist. In two cases, Algonquin had to convert the books, so Lucky 7 is also speeding up the press’s conversion of older print titles to digital editions. The books selected are: Michael Parker’s If You Want Me to Stay, Richard Goodman’s French Dirt, Jill McCorkle’s Going Away Shoes, Larry Brown’s Dirty Work, Brock Clarke’s An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes, Jim Grimsley’s Winter Birds, and Joseph Skibell’s A Blessing on the Moon.
