What's the publishing formula for placing an 80-page book of poems by an 11-year-old boy on the New York Times bestseller list? First, start with three canny wishes by a child suffering a rare form of muscular dystrophy: to meet Jimmy Carter (his hero, who later wrote a foreword for the book); to have his poems published; and--you guessed it--to share his message of peace on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The book, Journey Through Heartsongs, debuted on the Times list for November 11 at #10, having sold 170,000 copies in the weeks since the hour-long program Oprah devoted to Mattie Stepanek on October 19, during which she turned to the camera and said, with a tear in her eye, "If ever I had a book to recommend, it's Mattie's. If ever you were going to buy a book, I recommend it; this is the one, my friends." In addition to airing clips of Mattie on two subsequent shows, Oprah has pledged to re-air his entire program "sometime around Christmas." Meanwhile, Mattie has interviews scheduled on Good Morning America, in People magazine and on National Public Radio.
Journey Through Heartsongs, a collection of poems the boy wrote from ages 6 through 10, which moved up to #9 on the New York Times list for November 18, is actually his second book. VSP (Vacation Spot) Books has also shipped 85,000 paperback copies of Heartsongs, a collection of poems he wrote between ages 3 and 6, which also hit the November 18 list at #13.
"As a little publisher, I'm learning how to check stock daily and keep in touch with distributors. It used to be that I couldn't get them on the phone. Now they're calling me and leaving me their cell phone numbers," said Cheryl Barnes, 48, who runs the Alexandria, Va., press from her backyard cottage with her husband, Peter, 42, a broadcaster and journalist.
In the past month, she has fielded orders for 10,000 to 50,000 copies from wholesalers such as Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Levy, Costco and Target, and chain retailers Barnes & Noble and Borders. Bracing for big sales through Valentine's Day and beyond, Barnes has arranged for her printer, Phoenix Color, in Rockaway, N.J., to ship skids of hardcovers directly from the plant. To fulfill individual orders, now arriving on the order of 1,000 per week, Barnes has enlisted her retired parents, in addition to her staff of four, to help in packing and shipping the books.
Barnes met Mattie through her volunteer work at Washington, D.C.'s Children's Hospital, where the staff introduced her to the 50-pound boy in intensive care, who spoke around a thick oxygen tube in his throat and had already lost three siblings to the disease. His mother, Jeni, 41, suffers from the adult form of his disease.
At Mattie's bedside, where he nearly lost his life this summer, Barnes granted Mattie's second wish when she decided to publish 200 paperback copies of Heartsongs. The first printing almost instantly sold out to Mattie's family, friends and supporters. The Washington Post ran a sympathetic profile of Mattie, noting that his final wish--for an Oprah appearance--had yet to be granted. It was only a matter of time.
As the charismatic young poet appeared on a nationally aired Book TV segment in August, and then stole the show on the Jerry Lewis telethon over Labor Day (he held up a copy of his first book), Barnes kept going back to press to fill the orders. Since his appearance on Oprah, "people have been buying four and five copies of his book at signings, saying, 'this is my Christmas gift this year,' " Barnes told PW. "It has to do with September 11. People are saying, 'if this child can have this type of spirit in the position he's in, we can get through this.' "
A Press Transformed
With her surprise New York Times bestseller, Barnes is learning the ropes as she goes. She and her husband launched their children's book press on a lark in 1992 with a book called Nat, Nat, the Nantucket Cat, illustrated by Susan Arciero and written in rhyming couplets by Peter. They read a manual on how to self-publish, borrowed $15,000 against their life insurance and went to press for 5,000 copies of their four-color hardcover. The book sold out in its first year, and, to the couple's delight, has maintained steady sales of 5,000 copies every year since. Flush with that first success, the Barneses aimed to print two to three books a year, expanding their vacation spot niche publishing program to other locales.
In 1995, Cheryl Barnes was invited to create another title for children, this time about the White House. A woman who worked there felt a book would be a more educational keepsake than the Secret Service handcuffs then handed out as souvenirs. With the publication of Woodrow the White House Mouse, about a rodent administration with a few civics lessons slipped in, Barnes and her husband became fulltime publishers. Soon they were spinning off titles related to other capitol landmarks--including House Mouse, Senate Mouse and Marshall the Court House Mouse.
What does the future hold? In addition to hiring a new accountant and Washington, D.C.-based literary attorney Ronald Goldfarb to handle foreign rights, Barnes will draw on the more than 2,000 poems Mattie has already written for three books due in 2002: one on the importance of caring and comfort, called Hope Through Heartsongs; a collection of "poems of faith and spirit," Believing Through Heartsongs; and Heartsongs for All Seasons, poems and prayers for special occasions. "He wrote four more poems last week, so there's no lack of material," Barnes added.
