With bookseller buzz a key part of the marketing strategy for Charles Frazier's second novel, Thirteen Moons, Random House is sending out a healthy 5,000 galleys this week. But with eight weeks to go before the October 3 publication, the question for many is whether Random is putting enough clout behind the long-awaited follow-up to Cold Mountain to earn back the biggest advance ever paid for a single novel.

The chains appear to be divided on the novel. Barnes & Noble buyer Sessalee Hensley called it "a cornerstone of the fall" and is putting it "in every aspect of our holiday promotion." That confidence in part reflects Random's financial support for the title, as well as B&N's belief that Moonswill benefit from the continuing popularity of Cold Mountain, which has sold 4.1 million copies since 1997.

But Borders fiction category manager Joe Holtzman was slow to mention the novel when talking about key fall titles, instead citing fiction by Alice McDermott, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, Mitch Albom, and Diane Setterfield's debut. When pressed, he said in-house readers liked Frazier's novel, but "didn't love it." That's not an encouraging sign, given that Random has announced a 750,000-copy printing and needs to sell about a million hardcovers and two million paperbacks (by standard formulas) to earn out its advance for U.S. rights.

Indie booksellers who nabbed 300 early galleys at a BEA party and Frazier's ticketed autographing said the $8-million novel is good, if not a sure thing. "It definitely proves that Charles Frazier is not a one-book wonder," said Tom Campbell at Durham, N.C.'s Regulator Bookshop. Though Frazier's tale of a white boy who joins the Cherokee fight for their homeland is more "obscure" than his Civil War odyssey, Campbell believes that "all those millions of folks who loved Cold Mountain are not going to be disappointed."

But booksellers without galleys feel shut out. "It seems to be positioned like an opening blockbuster movie without advance reviews," said Daniel Goldin, buyer for Schwartz Bookshops in Milwaukee, Wis. "That makes me suspect there's a bit of review concern."

Little Random said the delay is because Frazier wanted extra time to polish his book, which put marketing details on a slower track. The promo strategy will hinge on national TV appearances and reviews, bookseller word-of-mouth and consumer ads, said executive v-p Carol Schneider. By contrast, Albom, one of the few authors whose second book matched the phenomenal sales of his first, whipped up anticipation for 2003's The Five People You Meet in Heaven with a 10-city pre-pub tour and a 30-city tour after publication.

Frazier's huge advance will keep the media focused on Moons, but he will need to overcome some baggage, since some saw him as a symbol of author greed when he left Grove for Random. But for now at least, booksellers seem more interested in what's between the covers than what's behind the scenes.