A Grand Rapids Bestseller
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on Nov. 17, 2005 Sign up now!
by Claire Kirch, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 11/17/2005
A bookseller in Grand Rapids, Mich., has almost singlehandedly caused a publisher to go back to press twice, for a YA novel published in hardcover two years ago, with a paperback edition last spring.
Janet Weston, owner of the Reading Tree, a children's bookstore, has sold 2,480 copies of The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) in the past six months. In fact, on the day PW called her, Weston had just ordered another 250 copies.
 Author Doug Wilhelm |
Eisenberg reported that the initial print run for The Revealers in paper was 10,000. The large quantity of sales to the Reading Tree made the publisher go back to press sooner than they expected; the book is now in its third printing, with 25,000 copies in paper; the book sold 25,000 copies in its hardcover edition.
The schools project in Grand Rapids will culminate with a visit by Wilhelm's from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 (which coincides with the Reading Tree's second anniversary). The Reading Tree has arranged for Wilhelm to speak at the four middle schools, as well as at an evening forum for parents, and on live local television. He'll also sign copies of The Revealers at the store.
