We Sell What We Like, and Now Two of Those Books are Featured in Events--More on Mueenuddin and Goolrick

One of my sales reps commented how prevalent handselling is in our bestseller list. Stacie loves Inside of a Dog and we blow through our 20 copies in less than a week (I'll link to her blog post when it's up). And I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Little Bee and Await Your Reply, two books I (and some of the other Boswellians) like to sell and connect with readers, are often in our top ten. Alas, Blame was harder, but I'm hoping, that like with Wrack and Ruin, the book will do better in paper. Not that I've given up on the hardcover...

One book I enjoyed talking about in hardcover that's just blown out the door in paperback is Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. We sold 9 copies of the book, which is very nice, but we're close to 50 in paperback already. I'm so excited about the upcoming event, that we've been trying to think of every way possible to talk up this event--writing to the local Dartmouth alumni head (He's an '86. I'm an '82, by the way, so we don't overlap), figuring out the Pakistani restaurants in town (boy, did the Korean restaurants help spread the word on Eugenia Kim!), and of course, lots of blogs and links. Here are some more:

1. Lots of info on his web site, including proof that this is a four-city tour and that we are one of the four destinations:
http://www.inotherrooms.com/

2. A great profile from Jeffrey Trachtenberg in the Wall Street Journal. Adding to his unique background, Mueenuddin was also a corporate lawyer.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335693578934973.html

3. And here's a link to Lynn Neary's "Best Books for a Book Club in 2009" story. Muenuddin's included, as is A Reliable Wife. He's visiting on Sunday, January 25th, for the paperback. The book comes out on January 5th. It's a laydown, which was rather shocking. They must be expecting to break this book out bigtime in reprint. And why not? Many indie bookstores sold big amounts of this book in hardcover and it was the kind of book that had stickiness. We've had three good reads in the store.

I did a post on the book, which turned out to be very popular, but not because of the book. It turns out a lot of folks do web searches on "The Official Consumer Product Survey of America."

Stay turned for a book on this list that we sold, but didn't pay attention to, and why I think as a result, we missed out on holiday sales.