Then We Came to the…sales conundrum

IN LIGHT of all our whinging about the declining space dedicated to books coverage in American newspapers, it is amusing to read this article about the publishing market. David Blum poses some interesting questions about what motivates readers to buy a book. Often (*gulp*) the whims of critics don’t factor in.

“Then We Came to the End,” first-time author Joshua Ferris’s satirical narrative of office life in a Chicago advertising agency, got the sort of universal acclaim from book critics that novelists dream of, and almost never happens….So why did “Then We Came to the End” not become a New York Times bestseller?…   

I’ll concede the point that book review sections don’t deserve to be whacked. But why doesn’t discourse result in sales? …shouldn’t smart, alert readers have been lining up to buy the Ferris novel? Something doesn’t compute.

It is odd when an expensive marketing strategy (Mr Ferris’s book even has its own website) and critical acclaim don’t generate impressive sales figures. And if a book fails to win momentum early on, things only get worse. Authors are left writing long lists of all the people they can send signed copies of remaindered books to.

It used to be that books had the shelf-life of a container of yogurt. Nowadays it seems more like hamburger meat. If a book doesn’t make it to the New York Times bestseller list within the first several days of arrival, it never will… Interestingly — and not coincidentally — much of the commercial fiction that lasts the longest on the Times’s list doesn’t get reviewed at all. Does that mean book buyers are less interested in discourse, and more interested in the latest Jodi Picoult? Apparently.

Sure, Mr Ferris’s book isn’t exactly a failure: Mr Blum reports that the book’s publisher, Little Brown, says it has shipped 50,000 copies. The hardback book is still selling well in its fourth printing. But it is a little surprising that a comely young author with a fistful of critical praise hasn’t yet climbed aboard the Franzen/Foer/Kunkel bandwagon of literary phenoms. Mr Blum suggests the problem may be the novel’s name (it’s cumbersome), or bookstores (which rely on bestseller lists themselves, so “prize positions get awarded to those who’ve already won the horse race”). His solution, in part, is for bookstores to create a special section for that week’s best-reviewed books. Perhaps, like in some wine shops, there should be strategically placed laminated cards of relevant descriptions and praise. The language (“full-bodied”, “robust”, ”strong finish”) can even stay the same.  

Having read “Then We Came to the End”–a clever and fun new novel, but hardly a work of genius–I’m not so sure that the reading public is completely bereft. But bookstores could clearly improve the reader/consumer experience by highlighting acclaimed books, in addition to their best-selling stand-bys. In the meantime, Mr Ferris can pray that his novel about office ennui is one day anointed by Oprah.  (Just check out Cormac McCarthy’s Amazon.com sales rank, and weep.)