RARA-AVIS: Re: Short and cheap

From: Curt Purcell ( curtpurcell@hotmail.com)
Date: 14 Oct 2007


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "hardcasecrime" <editor@...> wrote:
>
> The kind of
> mystery novels we love might sell 5,000 copies or 15,000 or maybe
> even 50,000, but not 500,000 and definitely not millions. Back in
> the Gold Medal days, you could reliably sell 100,000 copies of any
> book you printed -- but those days are long gone.
>
> How many Hard Case Crime books have sold 20,000
> copies or more? Not many. Not zero -- but a very small minority.
> And this is in spite of *outstanding* distribution (we're in Barnes &
> Noble, we're in Borders, we're in hundreds of independent bookstores,
> we're in drugstores, we're even in Wal-Mart, albeit in small
> numbers), and outstanding reviews in every major publication, and
> lots of award nominations, and occasional TV appearances, etc., etc.

That's pretty depressing. I think I've seen you mention before, Charles, that one or both of your Aleas entries is in development for a movie adaptation? Any other Hard Case originals in line for similar treatment? What kind of boost do you think those books in particular and Hard Case in general might get out of it? Anyway, I sure appreciate what you're doing. I've reviewed a few HC's on my blog, with more to come, and make a point of spreading my purchases around to different retailers, in the hopes that they'll all continue to carry them.



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