Author! Author! Book Publisher Gives Writers a Boost

Press kits from publishers tend to be as austere as a nun’s nightgown.

Typically they consist of a blurb about the new book, biographical material on the author and his or her photo, tucked into a utilitarian cardboard folder. Once in a while, the publisher throws in some little promotional item. The press kit for Janet Evanovich’s last book, “Two For the Show,” came with a purple fruit-shaped key holder, a visual pun on the name of bounty-hunter heroine Stephanie Plum.

But the press kit for Robert Crais’ new book, “Sunset Express,” is a veritable treasure trove of tschokes, including a spiffy black baseball cap, “Sunset Express” pins and, my personal fave, a neon orange plastic lizard. The gaudy reptile was immediately hung by its tail in a place of honor in my kitchen.

It was the lizard that prompted me to phone Crais’ publisher, Hyperion, to find out what was going on here. Crais, who lives in Sherman Oaks, is a former Emmy-nominated TV writer whose mystery novels feature a wisecracking Angeleno private eye named Elvis Cole. Cole is an unrepentant smartass who likes women, children and cats, does tai chi on his deck in the Hollywood Hills and has a daunting sidekick, Joe Pike, so laconic he makes Spenser’s buddy, Hawk, sound like a chatterbox.

The reason for my call was a suspicion, which Hyperion confirmed, that the publisher was actually putting both thought and money (albeit money used to buy plastic lizards) into marketing Crais. Talk to almost any writer and he or she will launch, with no more prompting than the Ancient Mariner, into a bitter tale about his or her last book, published only to disappear without a gurgle into the vast sea of books issued and unpromoted every year. About 50,000 new titles appear annually, and the majority are left to languish and die by the very houses that bring them into the world.

Since the first Cole book, “The Monkey’s Raincoat,” appeared in 1987 and garnered an Edgar nomination as well as Anthony and Macavity awards, Crais fans have been waiting for his books to take off the way so many less deftly written mysteries have in recent years (you know whose they are). Although Crais doesn’t say so, publisher indifference may be a factor. Bantam, the publisher of the first four Elvis Cole novels, didn’t even bother to send Crais on a book tour, which seems especially odd given that he is both personable and still looks, at 42, like the guy everybody in high school had a crush on.

But Hyperion, one of Disney’s many branches, has big plans for Crais, publisher Bob Miller makes clear. When the company started four years ago, Miller says, it made a long-term commitment to transforming a carefully chosen group of writers from cult favorites into brand-name authors. The first person the company began grooming was James Lee Burke, Edgar-winning author of a series of thrillers set in Louisiana featuring recovering alcoholic Dave Robicheaux. Others whose careers are being cultivated by Hyperion--all writers of suspense, because they come with a base of hard-core fans to build on--include Laurence Shames, Edna Buchanan, Ridley Pearson and T. Jefferson Parker.

Miller said he learned of Crais through one of Hyperion’s editors and its publicity director, both of whom were big fans. What the publishing house looks for, Miller says, are “immensely charming authors with enormous talent.” No writers unwilling to chat nicely with the public and sign books ‘til their hands cramp need apply. “We’ve found that touring is a critical piece of the picture in building these authors,” Miller says. For the current book, Hyperion has sent Crais on a 25-city tour. (He was in Minneapolis the day I wrote this.)

As Miller explains, “The industry tends to shy away from building authors over time.” But Hyperion feels that these writers have the potential to become major players and that investment in them now will pay off in the future. When Crais signed with them, he was selling fewer than 10,000 copies per book, Miller says. Hyperion shoots for doubling sales with each new title. “Sunset Express,” Crais’ second book for the company, has already sold more than 30,000 copies.

One of the things the company does is spend money--about $150,000 to promote “Sunset Express.” The process began in January when lizards were mailed to 1,200 bookstores. “We just wanted to get people wondering what the heck it is,” says Miller, explaining the rain of reptiles. More substantively, the same bookstores received three advance copies of the book, instead of the usual one, in hopes that more store staff would read it, like it and recommend it to customers.

Hyperion takes a systems approach to building its writers. One aspect of the process is, Miller explains, “to establish a look for each author.” Hyperion has come up with what it thinks of as a distinctive Crais look, which appears on the covers of his books and on his promotional materials. Cole is wry and ironic, Miller points out, and both the turtles on the cover of the previous Cole novel, “Voodoo River,” and the lizards on the current one reflect what Miller terms “a wry use of animals.” The neon colors are “hot L.A. colors.” In contrast, Burke is widely regarded as a literary stylist and has elegant covers.

Besides controlling the look of the books, Hyperion is committed to controlling when they appear. The publisher started a paperback imprint so it could coordinate the soft-cover publication of the author’s previous hardback with the publication of the new one (with complementary covers, of course). Hyperion also tries to get authors on a schedule that will maximize the impact of their books. Burke used to publish in the spring. When Hyperion moved his publication date to early August, when fewer new titles are flooding the market, Burke broke onto the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. Now readers know that if this is August they can expect a new Burke and the publication of the last title in paper.

Writers such as John Grisham are so famous their books all but sell themselves. But Miller says it is enormously gratifying to nurture the career of a deserving lesser-known writer and see the effort and commitment pay off in regularly rising sales.

“We’re doing this out of a long-term belief in the author,” he says. “It’s a leap of faith.”