Last year was marked by an unprecedented 15 debut novels that shipped 100,000 copies or more. From Paulette Jiles's Enemy Women to Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, many were pegged for success by two or more key retail promotions and TV book clubs. But in a year when overall hardcover sales showed growth of approximately 12%, according to preliminary figures released by the Association of American Publishers, numerous other "make-books" with strong publisher and retailer support didn't play as well.
Several factors appear to have been at work. A fall season that was particularly rich in titles from well-known authors made it harder for less established ones to attain a critical mass of review and feature coverage. The stagnant economy also led readers to wait until paperback publication when it came to books by unknown writers. "A lot of people figured they'd find out about the good ones and pay less later," observed Lynda Fitzgerald, events and marketing coordinator at Barbara's Bookstore, which has six locations in Chicago and on the East Coast.
Still, Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley was upbeat about her results: "We didn't see huge increases in the mega titles, but there were good increases in midlist fiction over the previous year." But she agreed that trade paperback fiction has more upside: "For us and for the customer, a $14 paperback is not a huge money commitment. And trade paperbacks go directly to the core reader, the browsing customer who drives backlist sales and is less impulse-driven."
With trade paperbacks logging growth of about 12% last year, according to the AAP, booksellers expect to see the silver lining on a number of 2002 hardcover titles when they reappear in the lower-priced format. In recent conversations with PW, five independent and three chain store buyers identified titles that garnered significant, but not stellar, hardcover sales—up to about 30,000 copies—that they believe have outsized paperback potential this year.
The title that attracted the most support in our informal poll was Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine (Knopf; Sept. 2002; Anchor, Oct.). It's an understated tale that concerns a Japanese-American boy and girl who are interned for three years with their mother in a Utah enemy alien camp during World War II, before rebuilding their lives with their father, who was separately detained. "The resonance with Middle Eastern families living in the U.S. now gives people something to think about," commented Fitzgerald.
"It's one of those quiet books that hit you emotionally," said B&N's Hensley, who echoed others in comparing its pocket size and lapidary jacket to Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Knopf 2001; Vintage 2002). That book has shipped 350,000 copies in paperback since last November, priced at $10, as Otsuka's paperback will be. At the chains, When the Emperor Was Divine was displayed in B&N's Discover Great New Writers and Borders's Original Voices programs. At Lemuria Books in Jackson, Miss., buyer Thomas Miller kept it at the front desk all season, where it proved a compelling impulse buy. "It was an excellent, steady seller for us for seven or eight months, though most hardcovers don't track that way," said Sally Lindsay, a buyer at the regional wholesaler Koen, in Moorestown, N.J.
Another book that drew wide enthusiasm based on the quality of the writing—not to mention saturation review coverage, from Entertainment Weekly to O magazine to the New York Times—was The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart (Riverhead, June 2002; paper, June). The picaresque story of a passive Russian immigrant hoping to find a decent job, a good girlfriend and a grounded identity stood out for its intriguing title and a first chapter that could readily hook browsers, according to Margaret Maupin, lead buyer at Denver's Tattered Cover. A major paperback tour and Shteyngart's recent New Yorker essay about contemporary Russian life are also likely to draw book club readers, according to Fitzgerald.
Book clubs are already starting to embrace Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (Random, Jan. 2002; paper, Mar.), the memoir by a white African woman raised by parents who fought on the losing side of the Rhodesian war for independence. A Borders Original Voices and Book Sense pick last year, it's now climbing the Book Sense bestseller list. "Booksellers wanted it to be a big book last year, but memoirs in hardcover are a hard sell," said Fitzgerald. Koen's Lindsey commented, "It strikes me as the perfect paperback. The jacket stands out on front tables, the price makes it more appealing, and it got enough play in hardcover that people remember it."
On the lighter side, several booksellers had high expectations for Mary Kay Andrews's Savannah Blues (HarperCollins, Feb. 2003; Perennial, Mar.), a tale of a tidy murder, great cooking and the gritty underside of the antiques business. Written under a pseudonym by veteran mystery author Kathy Trochek, the novel handily outsold the author's previous mysteries in hardcover, according to Perennial associate publisher Jennifer Hart, who noted that Harper will publish a new book by Andrews in July. "I think it could do as well as The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc [by Loraine Despres, also from Perennial]," said B&N's Hensley. Added Lemuria's Harris, "It's a great beach book, and the perfect book for someone going on a trip."
Beyond those titles, opinion was more divided. Most of the booksellers said they'd embraced Brad Watson's first novel, Heaven of Mercury (Norton, Aug. 2002; paper, Aug.), which attracted buzz at last year's BEA, was a Book Sense and Borders Original Voices pick and became a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle and the Book Sense fiction awards. But despite an uptick in hardcover sales related to the NBCC nomination, and the lush prose and sly sensibility that leaven this Southern gothic novel, most retailers said it was still a touch too bleak for a wide readership.
Maupin of the Tattered Cover was seduced by The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru (Dutton, Mar., 2002; Plume, Mar.), the story of a half English, half Indian man who crosses the brutal social chasms of the 1920s Raj by ingeniously reinventing himself. A B&N Discover and Borders Original Voices pick in hardcover that received wide critical praise, the book became a Los Angeles Times first fiction finalist several months after Kunzru was dubbed one of Granta's 40 writers under 40. "It's perfect to recommend to someone who wants one book to completely captivate them on a long trip; it's so rich, and it will last you," said Maupin. Others anticipated a solid but not extraordinary performance.
Though four of last year's six Book Sense #1 picks wound up shipping more than 100,000 copies, that designation didn't spur major hardcover breakouts for Susan Vreeland's The Passion of Artemesia (Viking, Jan. 2002; Penguin, Jan.) or Haven Kimmel's The Solace of Leaving Early (Doubleday, June 2002; Anchor, May). While Penguin has shipped just over 100,000 paperbacks of Vreeland's book and it has appeared on the Book Sense bestseller list, Borders fiction buyer Bridget Mason has been disappointed by its sales, despite her strong support in both formats. "I still believe this book has the potential to become a book club favorite, it just needs a word-of-mouth campaign," she said.
Hardcover expectations were also high for Kimmel's debut novel, which followed her breakout memoir, A Girl Named Zippy (Doubleday; Broadway). But the book suffered from a lack of reviews and didn't log much of a bump from the Today Show book club selection of Zippy last summer. "It will have another life in paperback, a very good life," said Tattered Cover's Maupin, predicting that book clubs will like it. But Lemuria's Miller echoed other booksellers in observing the difficulty of drawing a memoir audience to a first novel by the same writer.
Even when the two major chains and Book Sense all promote a book though their programs, it's no guarantee of hardcover success. Of the five books that were selected by the three programs last year, only two garnered big sales: The Lovely Bones and Yann Martel's The Life of Pi (Harcourt, June 2003; Harvest, June), which broke out after winning the Booker Prize. Of the remaining three titles, only Tess Uriza Holthe's debut novel, When the Elephants Dance (Crown; Jan. 2002; Penguin, Jan.), was identified as having significant paperback upside. Focusing on families and neighbors who hide in a cellar during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII, Holthe spins a web of myth and allegory through the tales the elders recount to distract the group from their terror. "It's a good story with a lot of drama, and the jacket is right—the perfect reading club book," observed B&N's Hensley. Though the hardcover was reviewed mainly on the West Coast, Penguin plans to bring Holthe to the East and introduce her to booksellers on her eight-city tour.
"I always say there are no mistakes in trade paperback," said Hensley. We'll see at the end of the year if she's right.
Correction: Due to a production error, last week's Book News article (Mar. 17) about Spanish hardcover editions misrepresented statements by Borders assistant Spanish-language buyer Aron Feit and Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers manager Jill Lamar. Feit projected that Gabriel García Márquez's memoir Vivir para contarla generated more than 10% of the chain's Spanish-language hardcover sales in February, not 25% of the chain's Spanish hardcover sales since December. Lamar did not say that the Spanish trade paperback edition of Laura Restrepo's The Dark Bride outsold other titles in the program at the time.
