With sales of her 10 previous books reaching more than one million copies, it may seem like novelist Jodi Picoult (pronounced pekoe, like the tea), has already made it. But Atria, which took her on hard/soft in 2000, is determined to turn Picoult into a full-fledged hardcover bestseller.
Like Picoult's other books, My Sister's Keeper (Apr.; simul. audio from Recorded Books) raises controversial what-if questions about issues that impact ordinary families. In this case, she considers what might happen if parents conceived a designer baby to satisfy the medical needs of the child's older sister. Atria is so certain that its $250,000 marketing campaign for the book will pay off that the house signed another three-book deal with Picoult last October, well before the results were in.
"I'm hoping we've reached the tipping point. Her sales have been improving consistently, and not just in hardcover," said Judith Curr, executive v-p and publisher of Atria and Washington Square Press (WSP). After hitting the New York Times extended list, Picoult's last hardcover, Second Glance, netted 66,000 copies in hardcover. By comparison, My Sister's Keeper will start out with a first printing of 125,000, and will be a featured alternate of the Literary Guild, Book-of-the-Month and Doubleday book clubs. "My Sister's Keeper is a strong book. We're basically going out with three times as many hardcovers as before," said Curr.
At Barnes & Noble, fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley is "fully ready for great sales on My Sister's Keeper." Characterizing her initial buy as "very strong," she said that the paperback of Second Glance will be on a stepladder display at the front of stores when My Sister's Keeper lands in April. Then the chain will feature My Sister's Keeper on our Mother's Day table and throughout the rest of the summer.
Talking Points
To date, paperback has been many Picoult readers' format of choice. Even before its March 2 on-sale date, Second Glance has gone back to press twice, for a total of 100,000 mass market paperbacks. Picoult's older paperback titles, like Plain Truth (WSP, 2001), sold 8,500 copies in all channels in the first two months of 2004, while Salem Falls (WSP, 2002) sold 6,000 copies, according to Curr. "What makes Jodi Picoult a burgeoning phenomenon are her backlist sales, which are phenomenal and on the rise," noted Leah Rex, fiction buyer at the Borders Group.
Independent booksellers are also on the Picoult bandwagon—especially those in her local area, who awarded Picoult a New England Book Award last fall for her body of work. In paperback, Salem Falls was a Book Sense 76 pick, as were the hardcovers of Salem Falls, Perfect Match and Plain Truth.
Part of the appeal of Picoult's paperbacks is that they readily lend themselves to book club discussions. In preparation for an upcoming Picoult reading, Jenny Glaser, book club coordinator for the Mequon, Wis., Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, is keeping copies of Picoult's books face-out on the stores' Book Club Recommends display." The same goes for Pat Boyer, co-owner of Bookends in Ridgewood, N.J., which has 35 registered book clubs. In April, Simon & Schuster's own BookClubReader.com site will feature Picoult, with links to the official site that she has created, JodiPicoult.com.
Building a Hardcover Brand
To get word-of-mouth going not just for My Sister's Keeper but for Picoult's entire WSP backlist, Atria is trying to turn Picoult into her own brand. The house has been using the tagline "Discover the World of Jodi Picoult" on most publicity and marketing materials, including the 5,000 ARCs that were mailed out to booksellers in October and given out at the fall regional bookseller shows. In mid-February, a second "Discover" mailing followed, with more ARCs, a packet of tissues (the book is a weeper), the trade paperback edition of Second Glance and a 96-page Picoult sampler. Atria is printing 55,000 copies of the sampler—which includes selections from five Picoult novels and an offer for a free paperback by Picoult with purchase of My Sister's Keeper—for accounts to give out to consumers. "The tagline makes it sound like I've got multiple personalities," joked Picoult, who is genuinely pleased with Atria's efforts to break her out. So far, the sampler has had the desired effect on booksellers, who may have ordered her books in the past but not been familiar with them. "I'm embarrassed to admit that I had never read one of your books before. I am pleased to let you know that after reading this sampler I am hooked," Lee Musgjerd, owner of one-and-a-half-year-old Lee's Book Emporium in Glasgow, Mont., e-mailed Picoult. Now Musgjerd is planning to recommend Second Glance for her store's book club.
To help spur excitement about Picoult among Simon & Schuster employees, Curr made a different kind of free offer than the one in the sampler. The first 50 staffers to sign up for an in-house reading group with Picoult for My Sister's Keeper got a free lunch and a set of galleys. As a result, Curr said, "the whole company is talking about the book; it raises the noise level." But it was not only what was said, but who did the talking that interested Curr. "Everyone was under 30," she said, noting that the packaging for My Sister's Keeper is aimed at younger readers than Picoult's previous Atria or WSP titles. Like The Pact: A Love Story (Quill, 1999), My Sister's Keeper, which has several strong teenage characters, could have YA appeal, and Picoult will be speaking to at least one high school this spring.
Curr has also been personally pitching booksellers about Picoult. Kicking off what she calls her "ambassadorial year for Atria," in which she is marking the imprint's second anniversary by talking with booksellers around the country, Atria's publisher visited 60 booksellers in January and February. "I went to the markets where Picoult sells really well—Chicago and Washington, D.C.—and to the places were her sales are really low, like San Francisco, so booksellers can see how much money and energy we're putting behind her. Then Jodi will follow me on her tour," said Curr.
Dubbed one of Atria's "road warriors" by v-p, publicity director Seale Ballenger, Picoult will spend two months touring 30 markets this spring. To promote the paperback of Second Glance, she'll do 11 signings in nine cities, in an effort to build anticipation for the hardcover, which lands on April 6. The second part of the tour will take Picoult to cities with strong book groups that have requested that she visit. Meanwhile, Atria will advertise Second Glance in the New York Times Book Review on March 7, and My Sister's Keeper in the New York Times on April 14 and USA Today on April 15.
"It's important to get out there and make a connection," says Picoult, who will leave her three children (ages eight, 10 and 12) in the care of their stay-at-home dad. Back home in New Hampshire, Picoult typically spends a lot of time reaching out to readers and personally answering every e-mail she receives. "I encourage people to write to me," she said. "I actually like hearing from the fans." If Atria is successful, it looks like lots of readers will be hearing from Jodi Picoult.
