Knopf Seeks More Bang for Its Book With Koontz Blitz

When Alfred A. Knopf paid Dean Koontz $18 million to $20 million for a three-book contract, the publishing house also gave the Newport Beach suspense writer the marketing ride of his life.

Knopf’s blitz for Koontz’s new novel ranges from the book’s eye-catching orange and chartreuse cover to a 15-second TV commercial featuring computer graphics that “morph” the book’s cover and Koontz’s name. The commercial has aired during such high-profile programs as “The Tonight Show” and “Good Morning, America.”

That’s not to mention a radio commercial complete with multiple voices and sound effects, a double-page ad in the New York Times Book Review and 2,700 point-of-sale bookstore displays featuring graphics as attention-grabbing as the book’s cover.

The highly orchestrated marketing campaign is paying off. Big time.

The book is already No. 1 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. On Sunday, after just three weeks in bookstores, “Intensity” will reach No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Koontz, who has hit the top spot on the New York Times list five times before, has legions of loyal readers who gobble up his annual offering like raw meat thrown to hungry lions.

Knopf’s marketing efforts with Koontz’s latest book are part of a growing trend among publishers to do all they can to get the biggest bang for the bucks they have invested.

“There is a drive all across the board with publishers and there always has been, but I think it’s more than ever now because the potential numbers can be quite large,” Koontz said. “If you can gain new audiences and increase your percentages in various kinds of readership, the ultimate upside is much bigger than it was 10 years ago.”

As a consequence, Koontz said, “publishers now treat books that have large potential the same way as Hollywood: To grow it into a blockbuster is the attitude.”

“I think what’s happened is marketing has become more of an art,” said Jane Friedman, executive vice president of Knopf.

“Marketing, which has always been this kind of amorphous thing, has now become more strategizing, and we do try to combine what I like to call an integrated advertising campaign, which is the book being displayed in the stores, authors doing interviews, the book being reviewed and us doing our advertising and having them all come together with a big blast.

“That was really put to the test with Dean Koontz and what can I say? On Sunday it goes to No. 1, just 25 days after it landed.”

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Timing of a book’s release is a significant factor in successfully marketing a book.

“We carefully orchestrated when this book was going to land in bookstores,” Friedman said. “It landed Jan. 3, which we think may be the ideal time.”

A lot of books come out for Christmas, making for a crowded marketplace. “You’ve got a lot of competition,” Friedman said. But January is traditionally a big book-selling month. “There’s a ton of traffic in stores,” Friedman said. “We think people in the dead of winter stay indoors and do read quite a bit.”

And, say some industry observers, January is an easier time to capture the No. 1 spot and thus be able to capitalize on the prestige that goes with it.

“It’s easier to make the list this time of year because many of the strong authors released before Christmas. As for getting to No. 1 very quickly? . . . Dean Koontz is among a group of a dozen or so authors who can do it. Pat Conway, Danielle Steel, Robert Waller, Michael Crichton, they’re the authors who can do it,” said the industry source.

“But common sense tells you that January is a good time to release a book. It’s not to say Mr. Koontz isn’t making a terrific showing. But he’s among that group who always seem to make a fairly rapid rise.”

But you have to know how to seize the publishing moment, Knopf’s Friedman said. “Many books have a short life, and you have that brief window to actually make things happen.”

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To make sure “we got the booksellers on board,” Friedman said, they began last September by sending out bound manuscripts of the novel, accompanied by a personal note from Koontz, to about 300 handpicked booksellers. “That’s something quite unusual,” she said.

They followed that by sending 10,000 bound proof editions--more than twice the number sent out for best-selling authors’ books--to bookstores. And they sent many of those to the people who actually have an opportunity to recommend a book to customers: the sales clerks.

The heroine of “Intensity,” which received a 600,000 first printing, is a young woman who risks her life to save the next intended victim of a serial killer who has murdered her friend’s family.

Because “Intensity” not only features a heroine, but is also a “life-affirming” story, Koontz said, “our feeling was this was a book that women are going to love and that maybe some of those [female] bookstore clerks” would read it and recommend it to female customers.

In the wake of “Intensity” reaching No. 1 on the bestseller lists, Friedman said, Knopf “will probably run a slew of big ‘bestseller’ print ads around the country.”

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Because Koontz is reluctant to take too much time away from his writing, he turned down his publisher’s request to do a national book tour.

But while he’s sticking close to home, he’s doing his share of publicity: four “radio tours” this month in which he’s doing about 80 radio interviews over the phone from his home. He also did a group interview over the phone with a dozen newspaper reporters, in addition to a large number of one-on-one phone interviews.

He even autographed 5,000 adhesive book plates that were sent to independent booksellers so they would have signed books to sell.

He’s doing more publicity than he’s ever done for one of his novels, but he’s not complaining.

“I think it’s worthwhile given their approach to packaging and marketing these books,” he said. “It’s not worthwhile if your packaging and marketing is designed to sell only to the converted. Then it’s not much point going out and doing media that’s aimed at the converted.

Not everyone thinks Koontz needs the extra boost of a big campaign in Southern California.

“He’s so popular already in this area so he always does extremely well.” said Jeff Delaney, assistant manager of a Brentano’s Bookstore in Orange County. But Koontz is happy.

“Early indications are this book is selling dramatically ahead of any of my previous books on a day-to-day basis.” he said. “You just hope it keeps up.”

Times Staff Writer Greg Johnson contributed to this report.