Choke Hold
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 6/11/2001
"If you're going to read this, don't bother." Evidently a number of people are disregarding this caveat, the opening sentence of Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk's Choke, which marks its second week on our fiction list. As Doubleday proudly points out, this self-proclaimed "stupid story about a stupid little boy" is its first book in the "Fiction for the Rest of Us" program to become a national bestseller. Marketing efforts included developing Choke "street teams." As senior publicist Beth Dickey explained, word about the book first appeared on the author's fan-run Web site, www.chuckpalahniuk.net. Two weeks before the book's May 22 on-sale date, Double-day created its own site (www.choke-book.com), which featured an offer of free Choke paraphernalia. Within a week, said Dickey, "over 700 fans had volunteered to distribute the materials, and these 'street teams' have been plastering locations ever since." The author has been playing to SRO crowds on his national tour and, back at home, Doubleday has been receiving photos from around the country of Choke sticker locations—pay phones, construction sites, traffic signs, even a police car. After five trips back to press, Choke has 60,000 copies in print.
