Recommendations

  • Extreme Acts of Literary Asceticism March 18, 2010
    Now this is why I love Borges. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Auster’s Prefaces March 18, 2010
    With all due respect, I think the answer is pretty clear–it’ll help their books sell. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Anything West of Chicago Is Not Necessary March 18, 2010
    Andrew Seal argues that “Chicago and New York are to U.S. fiction what Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are to the Russians. Sorry, Boston. Sorry, L.A. Sorry, D.C. Sorry, San Fran. Sorry, the South. You have your claims, no doubt, but they are as the claims of Pushkin, Lermontov, Chekhov, or Gogol.” Discuss. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Who’s Bad? March 18, 2010
    Phelan goes on to say, "There will, I’m sure, be no consensus about what constitutes badness or whether it belongs to the book, the reader, the situation of reading, all of the above, or none of the above," though he's almost wrong there. The list is pretty varied, from the morally-bankrupt to the so-bad-it's-good varieties, though gene […]
    John Lingan
  • Vollmann Interview March 18, 2010
    Wherein we learn that Imperial hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves and “Vollmann was exceptionally gracious as both host and interview subject, quite generous with his whiskey and his time.” […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Margaret Atwood + hockey movie musical = Heaven March 18, 2010
    In some of the best news ever, Margaret Atwood is going to have a cameo in a movie musical about hockey. Seriously. I am — what is the word? – giddy. Don’t believe me? Atwood discusses it on her blog. Can this news get better? Hell, yes. The movie also stars Olivia Newton-John. […]
    Matt Jakubowski
  • New NYRB March 18, 2010
    New issue of the New York Review of Books is out, with Colm Tóibín on exile lit. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • More from the NBCC Awards March 18, 2010
    With jokes from Joyce Carol Oates and "wild imaginings" from 92-year-old winner Diana Athill -- not to mention talk of a sequel from "Wolf Hall" author Hilary Mantel -- this year's NBCC Awards were noteworthy for their celebration of literature by women. […]
    Matt Jakubowski
  • Broom of the System Gets Cover Makeover, Plus One Cover I Love and One I Hate March 18, 2010
    DFW's latest cover makeover, plus a great-looking cover and a really not-so-great-looking cover. […]
    Scott Esposito
  • Rereading Wallace Stevens March 18, 2010
    Since buying The Selected Poems of Wallace Stevens at City Lights, I’ve been rereading many Stevens poems and trying to understand it from a more mature perspective.  Last time I read a vast amount of Stevens was when I was 22 for a class on Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, and Marianne Moore.  With fifteen years [...] […]
    Soo Jin Oh

No.

No.

Thanks for asking.

Usually, when an author publishes a book, his publicist will arrange a book tour. During the week or two after the book is published, or slightly before, a review comes in from the New York Times Book Review; radio and TV hold interviews with the author; things will be happening. Crammed somewhere into these press appearances, which are proven tools for spreading the word about a book, the author will stop at the Barnes and Noble at Union Square, at Powell’s Books in Portland, at Politics and Prose in D.C., and he will crack open his book under a banner bearing his name, and he will read with florid hand gestures (see footnote #1). When he is done, there will be questions, signed copies of the book in a neat pyramid. Audience members will be encouraged to approach the table—like children in line for communion. A smelly young man with a fake cough will be nowhere in earshot.

Does this ritual really help to spur book sales?

Pass it on:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Blogplay
  • StumbleUpon
  • Twitter

2 comments to No.

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>