HarperCollins Takes It on the Big ‘Chin’

There are plenty of shopping days until Christmas--and HarperCollins is grateful for every one of them.

Earlier this year, the publisher paid a reported $4.1 million for Jay Leno’s “Leading With My Chin,” a memoir of his childhood and nomadic years as a stand-up comic. But in the book’s first 2 1/2 weeks in stores (through last Saturday), it has failed to generate a level of sales consistent with such a huge advance and the late-night ratings supremacy of Leno’s “Tonight Show.” The situation illustrates the big risks that publishers face when signing brand-name authors to expensive deals.

“Leading With My Chin” ranked 21 among hardcovers sold last week in the Waldenbooks chain, and it was 16th in nonfiction hardcover sales in the Barnes & Noble chain, the country’s largest. The book was expected to be No. 37 today, up from 72 last week, on USA Today’s national bestseller list.

These poor numbers are doubly striking because the book has received substantial media exposure, not counting Leno’s nightly hour on television. There was a cover-story excerpt in TV Guide (circulation 13 million), Leno paid an hourlong visit to Oprah Winfrey’s popular daytime program (which usually gives authors a big boost), and last week he appeared on “Today” and “Live With Regis & Kathie Lee.”

What happened?

“It’s a slower build than we expected, but it is building,” Jack McKeown, president and publisher of HarperCollins’ adult trade group, said on Tuesday. “Part of what we’re up against is slower traffic in stores during October.”

He cited Publishers Weekly, which has been reporting declines in retail book sales and lackluster forecasts under such headlines as “August Awful” and “Scrooge on the Way for Booksellers This Christmas?”

However, industry observers have speculated that Leno’s many fans are more interested in his comic material than an anecdotal account of his life, especially one that stops short of his “Tonight Show” career. By contrast, Jerry Seinfeld’s “SeinLanguage” and Paul Reiser’s “Couplehood,” which each sold about a million copies in hardcover, were collections of comedic material that echoed the authors’ popular TV acts.

“I’ve been reminded that national election years do tend to have a depressing effect on sales generally,” McKeown said. “We think the book is going to track very nicely with the patterns of people getting back into the stores.”

To that end, we can expect to see more of Leno. “Jay is a total, total trouper on the subject of promotion, and he’s anxious to do more,” McKeown said.

Meanwhile, another big-ticket book that appears to be selling below expectations is Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.’s “Journey to Justice,” for which O.J. Simpson’s defense attorney was paid an estimated $3.5 million. Cochran’s new book did not rank among the top 25 sellers last week in the Waldenbooks chain, and it was No. 23 among nonfiction hardcovers sold at Barnes & Noble stores. The book has plummeted on USA Today’s list--from No. 58 last week to No. 124 today.. And the word is that Cochran’s memoir will vanish from the New York Times national bestseller list coming out Nov. 3.

However, “Journey to Justice,” published by Ballantine’s One World imprint, which specializes in African American titles, has sold well in outlets serving the black community--stores whose sales do not necessarily figure in the compilation of national bestseller lists. At Nkiru Books, an African American store in Brooklyn, owner Adelaide Miller said this week that she had ordered more than 500 copies of Cochran’s memoir and has sold nearly all of them.

Topping both Leno and Cochran in recent sales is . . . Patti LaBelle. “Don’t Block the Blessings” (Riverhead), the singer’s inspirational memoir, was No. 9 last week at Waldenbooks and No. 8 at Barnes & Noble. Her book will debut Sunday at No. 3 on the New York Times’ national bestseller list and is No. 28 in USA Today’s latest ranking.

Afterwords: As Martha Stewart works to extricate her business affairs from Time Warner Inc., her 5-year-old magazine continues to rocket in circulation. For the fourth time in 12 months, Martha Stewart Living is raising the circulation it guarantees advertisers. The so-called rate base will jump 21%, to 2 million copies, starting with the February issue . . . .

Villard Books, a division of Random House, and George, the political magazine co-founded by John F. Kennedy Jr., have announced a joint publishing agreement. Look for two books next spring: “George’s Book of Political Lists” and “George’s Thousand Ideas to Help America” . . . .

Heading east: Petersen Publishing, which counts Sport and Sassy among its properties, plans to move many of the company’s jobs from its Los Angeles base to New York and cut about 100 positions as part of a restructuring under a new ownership group led by D. Claeys Bahrenburg, former head of Hearst Magazines. Mediaweek magazine reports that Petersen’s auto publications, including Motor Trend, will remain among the freeways.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Thursdays.