Berkley Makes Big Plans for Shadow Mountain Reprint
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 7/11/2008 10:10:00 AM
Berkely is trying to turn a surprise hit from small press Shadow Mountain into an even bigger success in paperback. The book is The Wednesday Letters, Jason F. Wright’s story about a couple who die in one another’s arms and the weekly letters they leave behind chronicling the ups and downs of their marriage. Independent Utah press Shadow Mountain published the novel in hardcover last year; it sold 120,000 copies, and reached number six on the New York Times bestseller list and hit several other national hardcover fiction lists, including PW’s. This fall, Berkley will publish the book as a $13 trade paperback. Berkley publicist Catherine Milne said the house is planning a 225,000-copy first printing, and will team with Shadow Mountain on the author tour, pitching media, travel arrangements, event promotion and advertising. And Shadow Mountain stands to benefit from Berkley’s support, as it is publishing Wright’s new hardcover, Recovering Charles, a novel about post-Katrina New Orleans, September 16.
Berkley is planning a one-day laydown of The Wednesday Letters on August 26. It will run ads in USA Today and in booksellers’ regional holiday catalogs, and is producing floor displays for the national chains and many smaller independents. It’s making a big push to book clubs, offering a reading guide for The Wednesday Letters—which PW called “a lovely story”—and is reaching out to book club coordinators nationally.
Wright’s tour will begin with an appearance on Glenn Beck’s national television show (which helped The Wednesday Letters gain traction when Shadow Mountain first published it last year) and an event in the New York area. He will then visit Dallas; Cincinnati; Lexington, Ky.; Tulsa, Okla.; Pittsburgh; New Orleans; Salt Lake City; Indianapolis; Nashville; Phoenix; the Washington, DC, area; Richmond, Va.; and a few additional small markets.
Berkley acquired The Wednesday Letters when editor Sandy Harding spotted it at BEA last year. The paperback package will include a reproduction of one of the book’s “Wednesday letters” in a sealed envelope tucked in the back cover of the book. The letter will be hand-placed into each of the 225,000 copies Berkley is printing.
Wright’s earlier book, The Christmas Jars, which Shadow Mountain published in 2005, was also a bestseller.
