With the help of a catchy title and striking cover, the inaugural title in Akashic Books' new Punk Planet imprint, Hairstyles of the Damned, has followed a forked road to success. Released in September and now in its fourth printing with 30,000 copies in print, the paperback original has garnered praise from Entertainment Weekly and prominent displays at Barnes & Noble, while staying close to its punk roots through author Joe Meno's numerous appearances at bars and indie bookstores.
The autobiographical tale of a neurotic teen trying to figure out how to deal with girls in his semisegregated high school on Chicago's South Side has multifaceted appeal. It isn't just a coming-of-age story "about social, class and race issues," Meno told PW. "It's about how punk music changes this particular character's life."
At B&N, Hairstyles has become the number 2 fiction title in the Discover New Writers Program for Holiday 2004, behind Susanna Clarke's bestselling Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley dubbed it "The Catcher in the Rye for the new millennium." And Discover program manager and editor Jill Lamar is convinced that it's pulling in a broad range of readers. "The [raw] language makes it inappropriate to be pitched as a teen title, but it attracts young adults as well as adults," she said.
The book has also benefited from Meno's 30-city itinerary, and a marketing campaign that included not only traditional galleys, but, thanks to the Punk Planet magazine connection, 2,000 sampler zines distributed at coffee shops, record stores and BookExpo America. "It's like how bands put out singles," Meno explained.
When Akashic publisher Johnny Temple and Daniel Sinker, the 29-year-old editor and publisher of the 10-year-old magazine Punk Planet, first joined forces on the Punk Planet imprint (which Sinker heads), they had everything but a book lined up. Then Sinker signed Meno as a writer and editor for his new skate-culture magazine, Bail, and the trio forged a friendship that paved the way for Hairstyles' publication.
For Meno, whose previous two novels were published by St. Martin's and HarperCollins, Akashic's mix of guerrilla marketing tactics and publishing smarts offered the best of both worlds. The Brooklyn, N.Y. indie house has even struck rights deals in Germany (with Heyne) and Russia (with Limbus).
For her part, B&N's Lamar acknowledges the role that Meno and Akashic have played in the book's rise. "Joe isn't afraid to get in his car and drive wherever Akashic wants him to go. It's been a joint effort [between author and publisher]."
