Making Book on Dickey

Dutton is proud of how it has nurtured Eric Jerome Dickey's career over the last four years, beginning with his first novel, Sister, Sister in 1996. His next three books--Friends and Lovers, Milk in My Coffee and Cheaters--all made it to the #1 spot on the Blackboard Bestseller List (the last one also made the extended lists of the national charts--PW and the NYT). Cheaters was recently named Book of the Year by Blackboard. His fifth novel, Liar's Game, hit the #8 spot on PW's hardcover fiction list after one week in the stores. The publisher notes that with each book, Dickey's sales have increased, and for this new book's promotion, all stops were pulled. First printing was 120,000 and Dutton sent Dickey on a 17-city national tour that will keep him on the road through the first week of August. NAL is publishing the author's backlist in trade paper editions and also has a mass market of Cheaters. Check out www.ericjeromedickey.com for Web marketing details. A former stand-up comic, Dickey d s very well on the bookstore circuit. One of the hottest voices in African-American fiction, he boasts more than 1.5 million books in print in the U.S. for his five books.

Eight Is Not Enough
Bestselling suspense author Tami Hoag is enjoying huge sales with her eighth consecutive million-copy-plus paperback bestseller, Ashes to Ashes, which lands on PW's mass market chart in the #5 slot. The on-sale date was right before the July 4th holiday and Bantam describes first-week sales as "blasting off like firecrackers." Copies in print total more than 1.6 million after two trips to press; the hardcover edition, published last March, had a nine-week run on PW's fiction list, making it to the #5 spot in its second week. There are 300,000 copies in print for the hardcover. Hoag's ninth suspense thriller, Dust to Dust, g s on sale nationally on August 1 with a 300,000+ first printing.

A Business Favorite
Jossey-Bass, an imprint of John Wiley's Professional & Trade division, is enjoying a bestseller run on three business bestseller lists--Business Week, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times--with Clicks and Mortar: Passion Driven Growth in an Internet Driven World by David S. Pottruck and Terry Pearce. The $26 hardcover was published in April with a 50,000-copy first printing, and Wiley went back to press for an additional 25,000 copies before pub date. The publisher notes that sales at Amazon and Barnes & Noble alone totaled nearly 8,000 copies. The Jossey-Bass folks believe the reason this book is selling so well is a combination of name recognition (Pottruck is president and co-CEO of Charles Schwab, and Pearce is founder of Leadership Communication) as well as the topic being hot and timely.

To Bee or Not to Bee
A book that has arrived at the independents and is beginning to do well at the chains is the first novel BeeSeasonby Myla Goldberg, published last month by Doubleday. So far there are 50,000 copies in print after five printings. The book's publicity campaign kicked off in D.C. at the 73rd annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee (an apt site, as the novel's plot has a lot to do with winning spelling bees). Reviews for the book have been excellent, and many newspapers and national magazines noted the debut novel on their recommended summer reading lists; Entertainment Weekly named Goldberg one of the 100 Most Creative People in Entertainment in its recent "It List" issue. Still to come for Goldberg are appearances in New York City, a West Coast reading tour in September/ October and a 20-city Jewish community center tour for Jewish Book Month in November.
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