Bookworks Presents Shelf Awareness for Readers: Handselling to Bestselling

Not all books are promoted equally, but no matter the time and money spent, there are always surprises. We recently spoke to Wendy Sheanin, v-p, director of marketing at Simon & Schuster, about two debut novels--neither was a lead title, but booksellers turned them into bestsellers.

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom (Touchstone, $16) is the story of a white indentured servant on a Virginia tobacco farm in 1791; it was published in 2010 as a paperback original, with a modest first printing. Sheanin said, "It had an Alice Walker quote and we were publishing into The Help phenomenon, but no one expected it to be the runaway bestseller that it was." It became a New York Times bestseller and book club favorite--so popular that, in 2014, a hardcover "classic" edition was published. In April 2016, Glory over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House will be published--a stand-alone novel, but continuing The Kitchen House story.

Last year, we named Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove (Washington Square Press, $16) one of the best books of 2014. I've given away many copies; everyone I know who's read it has been charmed. Sales took off because booksellers fell in love with it and put it into people's hands. This is a bottom-up story, according to Sheanin, rather than "a heavy-handed marketing campaign story." The novel is now in paperback, and stores are suggesting it for book clubs and "handselling like crazy." It's on several regional bestseller lists, on the national indie bestseller list, and recently landed on the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times lists. Nonesuch Books & Cards in Maine has chosen A Man Called Ove as its book of the year, and expects to sell 1,000 copies in 2015. Sheanin and company are also big fans of Backman's second novel, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, and are happy that to be publishing his next novel in 2016. She says, "One of the great pleasures we have watching these books take off is that booksellers are tailoring their handselling to their stores"--and doing a fine job of it. --Marilyn Dahl, editor, Shelf Awareness for Readers

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