Battle of the Terrys, and Other New Releases

I'm sure a fan would never get Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks confused, but I would think that for other important folks might get confused. That's why I'm kind of surprised that The Law of Nines and The Princess of Landover are both coming out today.

For most indie bookstores, the big release would be Philippa Gregory's The White Queen. It's a new series set during The War of the Roses. Like many popular authors who write regularly, Gregory's sales percentage at indies has probably decreased with each book, in favor of other outlets. However, I'm pretty sure I'll sell more than what we did at the Downer Schwartz. We've done better with authors such as Lisa See and Daniel Silva, which tended to do better at Shorewood.

For someone like Joseph Finder, whose publication schedule is more erratic, and gets good reviews, his indie share is probably pretty decent. Also, he writes nice notes to booksellers. His new book, Vanished, is an attempt to change that, being the start of a series, and in a subgenre that seems to do well with mass merchants, and Glen Beck, who is good at driving folks to said outlets. Say what you will about Mr. Beck (and I know some of you would say very nice things and others would beg to differ). He's a reader and he supports the authors he likes, including fiction.

Oh, and one book I'm looking forward to, Frank Bruni's Born Round comes out Thursday (not a hard on-sale, so that's more or less). It's getting great advance reviews and some nice feature story pickup. Until recently, the restaurant critic for The New York Times, this is a memoir about his food issues. I haven't read it yet, it's on the pile.

So that's what our week looks like. I don't think there's anything here to drive customers in like we've had the last three weeks, but I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised.