Bought your copy yet? Claire and I sitting on the sidelines right now. I’ll buy it before my next trip to DC, I heard it has the addresses of the various locations so I can design my own “Dan Brown tour.” For us, the hubbub surrounding the book is more exciting than reading it. A whole week of Today show segments on just one book and only a select few were chosen to read and review the book. I love how Janet Maslin in the NYT review describes Brown’s ability to use “dashing” as an adjective and a verb in reference to Langdon.
There has been endless discussion on how independent booksellers should market the book since the large discounts given by Amazon and the big box stores can’t be matched. One solution is to pair it with other suggested books, a take off on Amazon’s “if you like The Lost Symbol then you’ll like this book also.” Booksellers were pros at this long before Amazon arrived on the scene and they are suggesting choice second books via Twitter using #buy+brown. Next Chapter Bookshop in Milwaukee will give customers a free copy of The Lost Symbol if they purchase $100 worth of books in one transaction. I would love that deal, I could make a dent on my Christmas list.
My favorite Dan Brown hype is a video by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group showing what it takes to print 5 million copies of a book and keep the plot a secret. Kudos to them for pulling it off!
Claire
Kim
