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Barbara R ther -- 8/7/00

'Friendship Cake' Makes for Sweet Sales
Booksellers Eating Up Food Guide

'Friendship Cake' Makes for Sweet Sales

26,000 slices--er, copies
sold to date

Lynne Hinton's Friendship Cake (Harper San Francisco) has already created a stir, both in bookstores and in kitchens throughout the South. Because the novel follows a group of women in a small North Carolina town as they exchange recipes and assemble a church cookbook, Harper cooked up a bake-off contest to coincide with Hinton's appearances. Customers were invited to bring their favorite cake to the bookstore, where local judges or fellow customers picked the best one. Particulars were left up to each store. Winners received a free book and a selection of baking implements.
Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh N.C., hosted a bake-off with 14 contestants and 40 customers acting as judges. "I think one of the reasons this event was so successful is because religion and food are two really big Southern interests," owner Nancy Olsen told PW. "When you put them together, people come. We sold over 95 copies to date, which is a very high number for a first book."

While God and good cooking have fueled successes on the tour, other Southern realities have altered the recipe. In Charleston S.C., Chapter 2 Bookstore promoted a bake-off to go with Hinton's appearance, but 100-degree temperatures that day kept bakers out of the kitchen. "We didn't have cake but we sold about 35 copies," said events coordinator Susan Davis. "And without a major national review, that tells me this is a book being recommended by one reader to another."

Word of mouth seems to be one of the secret ingredients behind the success of Friendship Cake. Sally Brewster of Little Professor Bookstore in Charlotte, N.C., called the book "A Big Easy on the handsell." It was named Book Sense's #1 selection for July and August. The initial print run of 15,000 has already been repeated, with more than 26,000 copies sold to date.

Booksellers Eating Up Food GuideBookstores in the greater Los Angeles area have partnered with local publisher Really Great Books to bring the best of neighborhood restaurants into bookstores and into the mouths of hungry shoppers. Hungry? A Guide to L.A.'s Greatest Diners, Dives, Cafeterias, and Coffee Shops (Nov. 1999) was compiled by Really Great's editors to provide an eating guide for Tinseltown's not yet rich and famous. The guide lists more than 400 eateries offering meals for less than $10, plus blurbs on ambience, best choices and historic notes on L.A.County.

Half a dozen Los Angeles area bookstores hosted food tastings during June and July to promote Hungry? "What we've done is carefully go neighborhood by neighborhood, and invited local restaurants that are in the book to bring samples of their wares to the bookstores." said Nina Wiener, RGB publicist and a contributing editor to Hungry? "For people in Los Angeles, where neighborhoods are so ambiguous, this is an unusual chance for people to get to know local businesses." RGB asked those who attended to think of the hungry and bring along a nonperishable food item that was then contributed to the regional food bank.

Bookstar of Culver City hosted an event that featured Caribbean, Cajun, Mexican and soul food, as well as door prizes and meal discounts. The event, according to store coordinator Charlie Nickerenz, was a great success.

Several Borders stores, in Sherman Oaks, Torrance and Westwood, hosted neighborhood food tastings in mid-July that were co-sponsored by a local NPR station.

"In a way, these eating spots represent the real ethnic and cultural diversity of Los Angeles, the city that many visitors never see. I think the bookstores are responding to this being a cultural, neighborhood affair," Wiener told PW.

Really Great Books has sold more than 6,000 copies, thanks to the numerous events over the last six months. The company will follow up Hungry? with Thirsty? A Guide to Juice Bars,Cafes, and Cocktail Bars, another entry in the Glove Box Guides series, this September. Eventually they hope to publish guides for other cities, for the thirsty and hungry everywhere.
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