How to hoax a book into being a bestseller.

[Paul Whybrow]

After the publication of Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman, which became an instant sales success, there's now a backlash with some readers demanding their money back, on the basis that the novel was misrepresented as being something that it isn't :

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ring-refunds-for-go-set-a-watchman-harper-lee

Personally, I always though that there was too much marketing smoke being blown around, with barely a fire for literary warmth, when it came to Harper Lee's first effort at a novel. It made me think of the old warning adage - 'If a thing sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'

And as Charles Bukowski observed :

Whatever the literary worth of 'Go Set A Watchman', at least it exists. I found a story this morning, via my Quora.com feed, about a best-selling book that didn't exist at all - until it did!

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biggest-media-hoax-in-history

This could be viewed as the ultimate elevator pitch, I suppose, for it roused the interest of enough readers to propel 'I, Libertine' onto the New York Times bestseller list.

 

[Carol Rose]

Well, I loved the book. *shrugs* It's a subjective industry, and haters gonna hate.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Whatever the literary worth of 'Go Set A Watchman', at least it exists. I found a story this morning, via my Quora.com feed, about a best-selling book that didn't exist at all - until it did!

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-biggest-media-hoax-in-history

This could be viewed as the ultimate elevator pitch, I suppose, for it roused the interest of enough readers to propel 'I, Libertine' onto the New York Times bestseller list.

This is truly amazing. It's hard enough to generate interest in a book that actually exists! He didn't even have to write one! And then he did, just for fun, like,
"whatev. It's already a bestseller. I might as well write it, I guess."

 

[Steven McC]

That's a great hoax story! Loved the detail about the gossip columnist claiming to have had dinner with the author! William Boyd did something similar more recently.

From Wikipedia:

In 1998, Boyd published Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960, which presents the paintings and tragic biography of a supposed New York-based 1950s abstract expressionist painter named Nat Tate, who actually never existed and was, along with his paintings, a creation of Boyd's. When the book was initially published, it was not revealed that it was a work of fiction, and some were duped by the hoax; it was launched at a lavish party, with excerpts read by David Bowie (who was in on the joke), and a number of prominent members of the art world claimed to remember the artist.

It just shows that so much of hype is people simply jumping on a bandwagon. If only we knew how to get our own bandwagons rolling...

 

[Jason Byrne]

Well, it's it obvious? We just need to talk David Bowie into hyping us!