Favorite Fixtures
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 9/29/2003
One of the two list veterans this week is Nora Roberts and her alter ego, J.D. Robb, collaborating on Remember When. Hardcovers by Roberts usually land in the #1 spot, but a very competitive week gives her only a #4 landing. Putnam launched the hardcover with a 540,000 first printing. The latest Dune title, Dune: The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin T. Anderson, lands in the #7 position with 135,000 copies. Tor Books is supporting the novel with a national 21-city, 16-state tour as part of its $250,000 marketing campaign. The mass market edition of an earlier title, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, is #16 on the paperback charts and has 250,000 copies in print. The authors are keeping a Web log (www.dunenovels.com) so fans can enjoy a virtual tour. How committed are Dune fans? Tor reports that a 7 a.m. interview on the Baltimore Fox TV station on September 18 (the day Hurricane Isabel was hitting town) was not canceled—even while government offices, mass transit, Amtrak, airports and schools were shuttered—because the show's producer and hosts are such big Dune fans.
