Despite the summer's once-in-a-blue-moon blockbusters by J.K. Rowling and Hillary Clinton, the year retains its gloomy aspect, leaving booksellers to scan the horizon for fall titles that will continue to pull customers into their stores. One of the season's biggest contenders is The Five People You Meet in Heaven, a first novel by Mitch Albom, whose 1997 account of his relationship with his dying college professor, Tuesdays with Morrie, became a publishing phenomenon. That Doubleday hardcover, which topped the New York Times bestseller list for four years and returned to press 106 times for a total of 5.7 million copies, was followed by a paperback from Broadway Books that has been on the Times list for more than half a year.
Hoping to sidestep the perils of a sequel, the popular sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press decided to avoid nonfiction altogether in his next book. "I didn't want to do a Wednesdays with Morrie, or Thursdays or Fridays. I didn't want to turn it into a franchise," Albom said.
True, he's playing it safe by echoing Morrie's life-and-death themes with a story about an aging maintenance man who dies saving a little girl's life. But it remains a question whether the book will float up bestseller lists alongside Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (also told from heaven), or sink like other novels by big-name inspirational writers, like Deepak Chopra's The Return of Merlin and M. Scott Peck's A Bed by the Window.
The Personal Touch
Albom isn't taking anything for granted, according to his longtime agent, David Black, who likes to say he grew up with Albom. "Humility is deeply ingrained in him. Mitch knows how fleeting success is," Black observed. For his part, Albom told PW that he asked for two editors because he was so concerned about the merit of the manuscript. He hadn't written even a proposal for the new book before he approached his new publisher, Hyperion, which reportedly paid him upward of $5 million for the novel and a work of nonfiction.
Hyperion is not leaving much to chance, either. "If anything, we're doing more than you would expect," said president Bob Miller. "We're seeing this as a long-term plan, about a year long." To start, the house printed 7,000 advance readers' copies in both cloth and paper—an extravagant promotional strategy the company has employed only once before, for Steve Martin's Shopgirl. Albom signed all 2,900 clothbound copies, which were snapped up during a special event at BEA and delivered directly to booksellers by reps. In addition to mailing paper galleys to the media, Hyperion has also approached 1,800 prominent rabbis, in hope they will mention the book in their Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) sermons in September, as many did with Anita Diamant's The Red Tent.
Like Diamant, Albom is prepared to go almost anywhere, anytime to get word-of-mouth going. And Hyperion is clearly counting on his personal appeal to attract book buyers. At BEA, Albom spoke to a standing-room only audience of 500. Many, like Mimi Wheatwind, a bookseller at Powell's City of Books in Portland, Ore., found the talk "inspiring." Since then, Albom has personally presented the book at the corporate offices of the Borders Group in Michigan, and Barnes & Noble in New York.
Borders is "very enthusiastic" about the novel, according to fiction buyer Robert Teicher, who projects it to be the season's top fiction title, or very close to it. "Besides making a sizeable inventory investment, we plan to feature this title prominently at the front of the stores throughout the fall and holiday seasons," he said.
But Albom's visits to the major chains were only his warmup act. In a highly unusual move for an established author, Albom will visit synagogues, libraries and summer reading programs in a 10-city pre-pub tour during the month of August, taking his message directly to the public. Along the way, Hyperion also plans to fit in more typical events, such as dinners with booksellers and a presentation at Starbuck's corporate headquarters in Seattle. Then, perhaps heeding Morrie's advice to make time to enjoy life, Albom will rest up for two weeks, before setting off again on his 30-city book tour.
On the national media front, Hyperion has arranged a q&a in Parade magazine and a Today Show appearance on the book's pub date. In addition, The Five People You Meet in Heaven will be a dual main selection of the Book of the Month Club. "We announced a first printing of 500,000 copies," said Hyperion marketing director Jane Comins. "We didn't want to come out too aggressive, but the accounts thought we were cutting it close."
No doubt she's been talking with book buyers like Judith Hawkins-Tillirson at New Leaf Distributors in Atlanta, who called the book "a page turner." "From the first sentence you're hooked. I knew it was fictional, but it was one of the truest things I've ever read." Although hardbacks don't usually sell in her market, which is made up primarily of independent mind, body, spirit bookstores, she's thinking about doubling her initial buy. "I think it will be a runaway bestseller," she told PW.
At Piece of Mind, a general bookstore in Edwardsville, Ill., about a half hour from St. Louis, the book is required reading for the staff. "I was fortunate enough to have Albom do a signing at the store for Tuesdays with Morrie," said owner Andi Allen. "This was pre-Oprah, pre-popular magazine reviews. We sold 150 of his books that night. I think this book is going to do really well."
Though several other booksellers were less sanguine about the book itself, everyone was buying into Albom's ability to sell it. And if perpetual marketing—from holiday e-cards to Mother's Day and Father's Day promotions in 2004—counts for anything, Albom won't have to worry like his protagonist Eddie about whether his life has value. He should be able to hear bookstore cash registers ringing all year long.
