AMS Bullish on New Book Review

Newspaper insert lands two million readers and enough ads to stay in the black

by Kera Bolonik -- Publishers Weekly, 2/25/2002

At a time when ad sales are dropping, magazines are folding and daily newspapers have radically downsized their book coverage, it would seem quite risky to start a new book review. But Creation Integrated Media (CIM), the advertising department of San Diego, Calif.–based book wholesaler and distributor Advanced Marketing Services, has been down this path before. Little more than a year after the debut of its glossy bimonthly book magazine Pages late in 2000, CIM launched Book Street USA, an eight-page book news and reviews supplement aimed at consumers, in January.

Designed to be carried free of charge by small and midsize newspapers, it has already appeared in the weekend editions of more than 40 newspapers, reaching close to two million readers. Although the publication is entirely supported by its ad sales from book publishers, who are themselves facing a soft book market, publisher Sandra Christie remains optimistic: "So far, we have generated enough ads to remain in the black," she said.

Book Street USA and Pages share a 22-person staff, as well as a stable of freelance writers, though editorially and financially both are based on independent publishing models. Book Street USA—which offers a mix of author profiles, a book excerpt, a kids' page and capsule reviews—is aimed at the general public. Pages, meanwhile, focuses on author profiles, niches like romance and mystery, and publishing industry news, though not book reviews; it has a circulation of 75,000–100,000, based on distribution to the managers of AMS's club customers as well as consumer subscriptions and newsstand sales. Though the two publications have different ad sales reps, all surely benefit from the clout AMS carries with the publishers whose books it distributes.

The January issue of Book Street USA profiles James McBride, the bestselling author of The Color of Water, whose fiction debut, Miracle at St. Ana (Riverhead), has just hit stores, and John Katzenbach, who discusses his new mystery thriller, The Analyst (Ballantine). On the back page, feminist theorist bell hooks talks about her latest work, Communion (Morrow). The kids' page offers an interview with poet Gary Soto, the author of Fearless Fernie: Hanging Out with Fernie and Me (Putnam), a book of poems for young adult readers. The ads come from publishers such as Simon & Schuster, Multnomah, Scholastic and Bantam.

"We are trying to strike a balance between literary and commercial, fiction and nonfiction," explained Book Street USA editor-in-chief John Hogan. "We're not interested in being like the New York Times Book Review. We want to reach book lovers across the country, and we want to feature the kinds of popular books they like to read."

"We've received a lot of great feedback so far," said Christie, who hopes to expand the number of newspapers that carry the publication. "We've gotten letters from readers who say that they are really happy to finally have a books section in the weekend paper."

Author Information

Bolonik is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Observer and the New York Times Book Review.

Author Web Sites: Sticky Business

For the film world, the Internet has proved an effective publicity tool—witness The Blair Witch Project and Steven Spielberg's AI, which stoked word-of-mouth via elaborate Web sites that merge fiction and reality, or related video games easily shared via e-mail. Now, Viking is touting two Web sites designed by author Jasper Fforde to publicize his debut novel, The Eyre Affair, as the literary version of such popular cross-marketing.

So far, the book is clearly sending visitors to the sites. Since its U.S. publication in January, traffic at www.thursdaynext.com and www.jasperfforde.com (launched last year to coincide with the book's U.K. publication) has increased almost fourfold, according to Viking publicity director Carolyn Coleburn. But can the sites entice uninitiated readers to buy the book?

Mentioned only once on the book jacket, Fforde's Web sites elaborate on the clever premises and unexpected corners of his fictional world, a parallel universe in which brilliant, slimy creatures known as bookworms open a portal into the novel Jane Eyre, allowing a criminal to abduct her from Bronte's text, in which she then fails to appear after page 181. It's the job of Fforde's heroine, literary detective Thursday Next, to get Eyre safely back between covers.

Thursdaynext.com abounds with pop-up windows advertising items found in the book, such as newly cloned birds from Pete & Dave's Dodo Emporium, and false links, such as locked-down sections related to the menacing Goliath Corporation, which are accompanied by Orwellian warnings against trespassing. The site also features a busy chat room and an area where readers can bid for the chance to be included in Fforde's sequel, Lost in a Good Book (all proceeds will be donated to a Welsh hospice).

Though both sites offer numerous subtle cues for readers to buy the novel, Fforde is not afraid to let visitors drift around his wonderland. But since the sites lack a viral element—such as an easily shared video clip or game—it's not yet clear whether they can capture and hold the attention of uninitiated readers and help move the 45,000 copies of the book that have shipped to stores.

—Sean Peter Genell