Slightly raunchy Southern belles who share a strong bond of friendship -- sounds a lot like the fictional sorority of Rebecca Wells's bestseller, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, right?
Well, yes, but the characterization also applies to the real-life, self-dubbed Sweet Potato Queens, a group of "self-sufficient and self-actualized" women from Jackson, Miss., best known locally for their reign in the town's St. Patrick's Day parade, complete with red glam wigs, majorette boots and strategically padded green-sequined mini-dresses.
And a collection of their own "divine secrets" -- humorous words of wisdom on life and love set forth in The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, an original trade paperback release from Crown -- is shaping up as a sleeper success of its own. Since its March publication, the Three Rivers Press paperback has gone back to press seven times, for a current total of 60,000 copies in print.
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love is the first tip from JoAnne Prichard, who, along with her husband, former Harper's editor and author Willie Morris, lives in the Queens' home hive of Jackson. In one of her first discussions with Crown, Prichard, who came to scout for the house through a personal connection (she was the high school English teacher of Crown's director of manufacturing), casually mentioned the Queens, and a book was born.
Finding a writer for the Queens' philosophy proved no problem; Queens leader Jill Conner Browne, who serves as the book's author, also writes a local humor column. The book has drawn raves from such respected Southern humorists as Fannie Flagg and Roy Blount Jr.
Sales first swelled, not surprisingly, in the South. Ground-zero bookstore Lemuria, based in Jackson, is "selling the spuds out of this book," as Crown publicity director Brian Belfiglio put it. To date, the store has sold 2000 copies.
Crown sent Browne on a five-city tour this past spring -- to Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, Dallas and Jackson. While in Nashville, Browne met with the telemarketers at Ingram, many of whom came dressed in sequins themselves in homage. Jill and the Queens then got a rock 'n' roll tour bus to take them to New Orleans for two signings and a book party.
To date, Browne has visited about 20 bookstores in the South, but the book is already achieving breakout beyond the region. Not only has Ingram helped by recommending the book to national customers, but the book also just received a major national attention with a review in People in its July 12 issue, which helped prompt a demand of almost 1000 copies last week alone.
While Crown is doing some nice profitable business on this book (it was acquired in a modest, unagented deal, with a followup book to come), the staff quite simply seems to be enjoying the book as much as its readers. "I guess you could say it was a bit of a boondoggle, because we just had so much fun," said Crown editorial director Ross about the "marketing" trip he, publisher Chip Gibson and editor Rachel Kahan took to be part of the Queens' parade.
And Belfiglio expressed some bemusement about his time on the road with the Queens, who lay out some interesting sexual attitude in such chapters as "The True Magic Words Guaranteed to Get Any Man to Do Your Bidding," "The Five Men You Must Have in Your Life at All Times" and "Men Who May Need Killing, Quite Frankly."
"Unspeakable things happened to me on that bus," Belfiglio told PW. Not unspeakable, however, was the fact that the Queens at one point dressed him up in their lingerie. "That I considered a good thing," he said.
