They say payback can be tough, but it's been sweet for novelist Brad Meltzer, author of Hachette's bestselling political thriller The Book of Fate. Last August Meltzer, who also writes comic books for DC Comics, arranged with both publishers to have a prose excerpt from The Book of Fate published in Meltzer's relaunch issue of The Justice League of America, a comic book featuring DC superheroes Superman and Batman. Now, Hachette is returning the favor by placing ads for DC's graphic novel collections of Meltzer's Justice League of America and Identity Crisis in the paperback edition of The Book of Fate.
Meltzer, a lifelong comics fan, initiated the promo effort between DC and Hachette in an effort to bring together his separate audiences of prose and comics fans—and to promote comics as a legitimate literary medium. When the plan to excerpt The Book of Fate in JLAwas announced, Hachette agreed to reciprocate by placing ads for Meltzer's DC Comics series in his Hachette paperback editions. Meltzer said that to the best of his knowledge, this is the first time comic books have been cross-promoted in a prose bestseller.
"[The excerpt] was absolutely what gave The Book of Fate the reaction it received," said Meltzer. "At every single book signing I did, there were readers holding both comics and novels," he said. "Mainstream houses and the press like to treat comics as some sort of lesser, ugly stepsister," said Meltzer, "but readers are readers. There is absolutely crossover, and I felt honored that Hachette and DC had the foresight to prove it."
After three printings, The Book of Fate has more than 370,000 copies in print in hardcover and Grand Central Publishing is releasing 757,000 copies of the mass market paperback. Grand Central v-p and publisher Jamie Raab agreed with Meltzer, calling the original excerpt "one of the most successful promotions we've ever done. It really got his comic book readers to read his novels. It worked fantastically. We're happy to work with DC; it's mutually beneficial."
Meltzer said the cross promotion will extend to his backlist. Hachette/GCP is repackaging all of his novels, including his first book, The Tenth Justice, and the JLA ad will be in all of them. "That's just smart marketing by Hachette," said Meltzer, "and a great way to return the favor."
