5 Books That I Would Have Media-Blitzed

On Monday I talked a bit about how books ended up on everyone's radar. If you missed it, you can read it here, but basically I was talking about how publishers decide to dump a ton of advertising money on a given book which is how it ends up being one of the "it" books of the year. Which kind of depressed me a little because it's not a merit-based system. I'm one of those readers who likes to think the best book will always win. But the reality is that for whatever reason, the books that everyone buzzes about throughout the year are almost always the books that the publishers choose to spend a crapload of money media-blitzing. 

Not that the books that they blitz (hey, now that sounds like a good jingle right there) are bad books. As I mentioned last time, most of the books the big publishers push on us are well-written and hold their own. But if you look close enough, those books didn't just become best-sellers and IT-books because they were decent reads. We were told they were awesome, amazing, super-wow books. By the publisher's ad campaigns. Ahem.

Anyway. The whole thing got me to thinking about some of the really, really good books I read this year that obviously didn't have big publisher media blitzes behind them. I'd love to ask the publishers why they chose to bypass these books and blitz others, but I doubt I'd get a satisfactory answer. Odds are, it was just some editor somewhere who liked a book enough and had the power to bestow the money.

If I were to play super-powerful editor for a day, though, here are a few of the books I would have media-blitzed the hell out of in 2014:

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine. Described as a love letter to literature, Alameddine's novel about a reclusive aging woman in Beirut is brilliant, sad, and written for everyone who has ever loved books. 

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson. A debut novel set in rural Montana with a downtrodden social worker doing his best but fighting an uphill battle, Henderson hits all the right notes. And then some. Wow.

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. The author's second foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes secures him a place in the canon. No one writes Holmes this well. Except Doyle. Maybe.

Brutal Youth by Anthony Breznican. A debut novel set in a Catholic school where student hazing and bullying spiral out of control. A tight, beautifully wrought novel that left me thinking about it long after it was over.

A Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel (non-fiction). A brilliant narrative non-fiction that explores the effects of technology on our attention and the sometimes deadly results that can occur, Richtel may well be on track for another Pulitzer with this effort even if it wasn't heavily advertised by William Morrow.

So there you have it. What books did you run across in 2014 that slid under the radar? 

Is it safe to come out yet?

No, I'm not talking about emerging from the chaos of the holidays, although there's something to be said for that as I claw my way out from under the tinsel, crumpled wrapping paper, and thousands of rogue pine needles that seem to have first infiltrated my house and have now risen to waist-high levels that no one seems inclined to muck out. 

I'm talking about the insidious end of the year "Best-of" book lists. It started innocuously enough back in early December, when I worried incessantly about all of the books that were to be published throughout this last month of 2014. Were they automatically considered B-list books by virtue of their publishing date? What if next year's Pulitzer winner was released on this last Tuesday of the month?

My worries were soon buried in an ensuing avalanche of hundreds of Best Books of 2014 lists. Much like my wrapping paper-tinsel-pine needle-covered living room floor, my feed reader was so inundated with these lists by mid-month that I was forced to just turn it all off. Because let's be honest: how many times can one see essentially the same damn list over and over and over without slipping into a coma? Don't get me wrong: I completely agree that Anthony Doerr wrote an awesome novel. All the Light We Cannot See makes for some good reading. But I had to ponder...is it really all that much better than some of the other great books I read this year? And if the answer is um not really, why is Doerr's novel (and the others that routinely showed up on the lists over and over) getting all the attention?

The answer, of course, is publicity. Which isn't as merit based as we'd all like to think. I mean, in a perfect world the best book would also be the best-selling book, right? Because that makes sense. The reality is much different. Books, after all, are simply goods being sold. Book consumers, like consumers of any other goods, buy books in large part based on advertisement (book publicity). Once a book gets some good publicity rolling, word of mouth between friends, book bloggers, book clubs, and the like keeps that momentum going and if the book was any good to start with *BAM*, you've got yourself a best-seller and the profits start rolling in.

But with thousands of books published each year, it should be pretty obvious to you by now that not all of these books get the big publicity push or advertising campaign from their publishing houses. Countless books are released each year by the Big Five houses with no more than a purchased Kirkus review and some advance copies set loose on NetGalley. So why do some books get the big publicity and others not? 

It probably shouldn't shock any of us that it comes down to the accounting department. When it comes to previously published authors, publishers will run what they call a profit and loss analysis to see what they can reasonably expect to sell and whether it would be worth their while to advertise the hell out of their latest novel. But that kind of advertising is different from the kind of advertising blitz that goes with a debut author. Remember Erin Morgenstern? Back in 2010 she wrote a novel called The Night Circus and Doubleday made headlines when they bought her novel for somewhere in the high six figures. Yep, a debut novel. So Doubleday was taking a big, big chance here. If you remember the book it's probably because Doubleday also rolled out the carpet on one of the biggest ad campaigns for that damned book. They were going to make sure it sold and recoup some of that high six figures they sank into the book or heads were going to roll.

And it worked. The book sold when it was published the next year. It was just-better-than-average story, not bad but not stunningly amazing either. Not the hype. The ad campaign that Doubleday paid for got The Night Circus in front of every fiction reader in America. And then we haven't heard from Morgenstern since. And even if we did, I know that I wouldn't be purchasing it because the book was more hype than substance. Lesson learned (well, not really, because I fall for this kind of crap all the time).

What about the books that don't get any publisher ad campaigns? What are those authors supposed to do? Mostly nothing. If they're lucky they can go to a few book signings, hopefully not at their own expense. But mostly they hope that their book is so good that word of mouth (or hell, maybe Oprah herself) will trump ad campaigns and give them a better bargaining chip when they negotiate their next book. 

So what is my point? (Do I even have a point?) It's not that the "Best of" lists are wrong, per se. More like they are incomplete. As you take a look at them this year, or any year for that matter, try to remember the ad campaigns - if any - for each book on the list. Was it a big blitz? If so, why? Did they pay a lot of money for the book? What was at stake for the publisher? If nothing else, it will keep your eyes from blurring over as you read the same lists over and over and over........

Check back on Wednesday and let's look at a few 2014 books that didn't make too many lists because not too many people read them. Why? Because they didn't have huge publisher ad campaigns. So come check it out.