Two Regionals Conflict with New Paolini Pub Date

By Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 1/31/2008 2:06:00 PM

Two weeks after Knopf Books for Young Readers acceded to requests by booksellers to move the release date of Christopher Paolini’s Brisingr, the third book in the Inheritance series, to a weekend so that they could plan midnight store events on a non-school night, some new wrinkles have arisen.

The new release, Saturday, September 20 at 12:01 a.m. (it was originally to be Tuesday, September 23) is causing conflicts for children’s booksellers planning to attend the New England Independent Booksellers Association regional trade show, to be held September 18–20. (Another potential conflict is the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers show, which starts on September 21.) According to posts on the NEIBA listserv, some children’s booksellers will now have to skip the show so that they can prepare for Harry Potter-type crowds and activities.

Elizabeth Bluemle of Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vt., says she and co-owner Josie Leavitt were “utterly dismayed” on seeing the on-sale date when they signed Random House’s Brisingr affidavit. “Eragon fans are second only to Harry Potter fans in their fervor for the next book,” Bluemle says, “and will be expecting a release party at midnight—which would be hard to do if we were in Boston attending the trade show. Even without a midnight party, that Saturday would be a huge sales day for Brisingr at our bookstores. All NEIBA stores will be forced to make hard decisions: to skip our invaluable annual trade show, or scale way back on the biggest release of the children’s book year. Obviously, Random House wasn’t aware of the conflicts when setting the release date, but so many booksellers are affected that the problem needs to be addressed in some manner.”

However, it looks like NEIBA may have to face a drop in attendance since it is locked into its dates, as is Random House. “The decision to change the onsale date of Brisingr to September 20 was made following many requests from booksellers. The publication date will remain,” says Christine Labov, director of publicity, Random House Children’s Books. As for NEIBA, executive director Steve Fischer says, “We can’t change our show. We’re already booked through 2010 and we’re starting to book 2011 and 2012.”