I dropped in at my neighborhood bookstore yesterday, where they had just placed their orders for September books from Random House. Even though I didn’t buy anything (they didn’t have the cars issue of Consumer Reports) they were nice enough to let me take the catalog with me.
Not only was I able to see how many copies of Game of Cages they’d ordered (answer: 10), but I had a chance to look at the way RH designs their mailed catalogs. It was mostly just what you’d expect, except for one thing that surprised me (but shouldn’t have): Most of the books had a line for Story Locale and another for Author Residence.
It surprised me, but it makes perfect sense when I think about it: if the story is set in Portland, Powell’s might carry it as local interest. Same for authors.
I read somewhere that James Patterson (who had a top-notch advertising career before he became an author) did a ton of market research to best locate each of his series.
That’s an interesting idea. I wonder if he examined the number of likely readers in a place or its widespread appeal?
Hmm.
At one point, he found that he didn’t have quite so many readers in southern California, so he set his women’s murder club series there. Bingo, more sales. You’ve got to hand it to the guy for his marketing savvy, at least.
That’s pretty clever. Huh.