For years now, hardbacks have been published to help ‘set up’ the paperback. Very few hardbacks, especially those written by new or developing authors, will sell more than a few hundred copies or perhaps in the low thousands at best. But our industry continues to churn them out, and with some reason. They help to garner review coverage which, in turn, can elicit a nice quote for the paperback and can start a buzz on the book that may transfer into strong paperback sales. 1,000 people reading and enjoying a hardback can generate good word-of-mouth. 1,000 sales of a debut hardback is quite respectable and could be seen by a retail buyer as a sign that the paperback is worth a punt. 1,000 readers for any book is bloody good these days. But what if I can find 10,000 readers for In Praise of Savagery before the paperback comes out? How much more noise, how much more chatter, how much more word-of-mouth could they generate? And does it matter if I find them via iPads, Kindles, Sony Readers and iPhones?
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dilipickle posted this
