Bound and Determined to Find the Next Bestseller : In an Era of Multimillion-Dollar Flops--Remember Johnnie Cochran’s Book, Jay Leno’s?--Publishers Reassess as They Prepare for the Next Onslaught

NEW YORK — The timing couldn’t be more perfect.

In the aftershock of a verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial, Viking plans to rush 1 million copies of Marcia Clark’s “Without a Doubt” into bookstores this spring. Faster than you can say Bruno Magli, Clark will begin what her publisher calls “a blockbuster marketing campaign,” hitting 12 cities and making scores of appearances in lecture halls, and on radio and TV.

Soon after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal on criminal charges, industry pundits believed Clark was easily worth the $4.5-million advance that Viking had paid her. But that was before Johnnie Cochran’s “Journey to Justice” ($4.2 million advance) went belly up in the stores. Indeed, Clark inked her deal as a wave of Simpson-related titles began saturating the market, with varying success. Now, “Without a Doubt” looks more like a gamble than a sure thing.

The irony in Clark’s title extends to publishing as a whole: In 1996, hardcover sales of big fiction and nonfiction books slowed, unsold titles were shipped back to publishers in record numbers, and the window of opportunity for celebrity books--the time in which they must catch fire with readers before yielding the shelves to other titles--got smaller.

Beyond the disappointing performance of Cochran’s book, other high-visibility titles that did not meet sales expectations were Jay Leno’s “Leading With My Chin” (HarperCollins), Tim Allen’s “I’m Not Really Here” (Hyperion) and Scott Turow’s “The Laws of Our Fathers” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). To be sure, all of these books sold well enough to make it onto bestseller lists, and booksellers reported healthy business during the crucial Christmas season. But overconfident publishers simply flooded stores with too many copies of books for which they had shelled out seven-figure advances. In the aftermath, booksellers are either returning many of these titles by the boxful or slashing the cover price by 50%.

As 1997 begins, publishers insist they will approach the volatile book market with far more caution. And well they should, because the economic assumptions that once guided American publishing, hardly an exact science to begin with, have never been more in doubt.

Do customers buy books in bookstores? Chain superstores are crowded, yet the fastest-growing sales sector by far is on the Internet. Amazon.com, a new mail-order service that shipped only a handful of books last April, ended the year with $17 million in sales.

What influences people to buy books? Touring authors, book reviews, advertising and word of mouth used to be the keys, but nowadays talk-show hosts wave the magic wand. If Oprah Winfrey takes a shine to your book, it can sell hundreds of thousands of copies in a matter of weeks.

What do readers really want? Publishing has never done the market research that drives the television and movie businesses, but it could always count on a steady demand for new product. Now, with profits slumping badly--in November, adult hardcover sales were down 29% from the previous year--the question is increasingly asked: Where did all the customers go?

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There are no easy answers, but publishers and booksellers are hoping that a flood of new titles will restore stability to the literary market in 1997. Here’s a brief sampling:

Fiction lovers can anticipate new books by four legendary writers. In March, “Hapworth 16, 1924,” the first new publication in 34 years from J.D. Salinger, will be published by Orchises Press, a Virginia house. The work previously appeared in the New Yorker in 1965, and has long been the subject of analysis by Salinger experts.

Why the book is appearing now and what the notoriously reclusive author has to say about it are mysteries. There will be absolutely no publicity campaign.

Similarly, readers who have been waiting 10 years for Tom Wolfe’s first novel since “Bonfire of the Vanities” can look forward to “Ambush at Fort Bragg” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Portions of the Atlanta-based novel, which focuses on the wild excesses of TV reporting, have been excerpted in Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral” (Houghton Mifflin) tells the story of Seymour “Swede” Levov, a rich New Jersey businessman whose family and fortune collapse amid the calamitous tensions of the 1960s.

Finally, “Mason & Dixon,” a long-awaited novel by Thomas Pynchon, will be released in April by Holt. The book, telling the story of British surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, has reportedly been in the works for years. But, as with Salinger, there is little chance the reclusive Pynchon will make any public appearances in connection with his novel.

Quality fiction is also due from Norman Mailer, an as-yet-untitled book about Jesus (Random House); Ira Levin, “Son of Rosemary” (Dutton), the sequel to “Rosemary’s Baby”; Saul Bellow, “The Actual” (Viking), a novella that is his first work of fiction in 10 years; Leslie Marmon Silko, “Gardens in the Dunes” (Simon & Schuster); Kathryn Harrison, “The Kiss” (Random House); Ann Beattie, “My Life, Starring Dara Falcon” (Knopf); Robert Stone, “Bear and His Daughter,” a collection of short stories (Houghton Mifflin); Richard Russo (author of “Nobody’s Fool”), “Straight Man” (Random House); and Michael Dorris, “Cloud Chamber” (Scribner), a long-awaited sequel to “Yellow Raft in Blue Water.”

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While fiction bestseller lists are typically dominated by a handful of brand-name authors--Grisham, Crichton, Clancy and the like--the nonfiction lists are harder to predict. In 1996, the charts were a hodgepodge of celebrity autobiographies, self-help guides, biographies, humor books and the occasional political or historical title that connected with readers. Publishers are banking on a similar mix in 1997.

Books by or about celebrities include “What Falls Away,” by Mia Farrow (Doubleday), a scorching look at her relationship with Woody Allen and other men. Also, an as-yet untitled work by former presidential aide George Stephanopoulos (Little, Brown); a book of humorous writings by Whoopi Goldberg (Weisbach Books); “I Ain’t Never Been Cool,” by Sinbad (Bantam); “God Said, ‘Ha!’ ” a book-length version of Julia Sweeney’s one-woman Broadway show (Bantam); “Tiger: A Biography of Tiger Woods,” by John Strege (Broadway Books); “Foster Child: A Biography of Jodie Foster,” by Buddy Foster and Leon Wagener (Dutton); “Flashbacks,” autobiography of the late Timothy Leary (Putnam); “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor,” by Alec Guinness (Viking); “Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham” (HarperCollins); and “Rosie: The Biography of Rosie O’Donnell,” by James Robert Parish (Carrol & Graf).

Historical biographies will feature “Ernie Pyle’s War,” by James E. Tobin (Free Press), about the famed World War II journalist; “Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life,” by Laurence Bergreen (Broadway Books); “Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life,” by Janet Hadda (Oxford University Press); “John F. Kennedy: Commander in Chief,” by Pierre Salinger (Viking); “Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman,” by Donald Spoto (Broadway Books); and “Jackie Robinson: A Biography,” by Arnold Rampersad (Alfred Knopf), a book timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s breaking the color line in major league baseball.

Politics and history will be highlighted with Alice Walker’s “Anything We Love Can Be Saved,” (Random House), a look at activism in daily life; “In Love With Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy,” by Ronald Steel (Simon & Schuster); “Race, Crime and the Law,” by Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy (Pantheon); “The Slave Trade: 1440-1870,” by Hugh Thomas (Simon & Schuster); and “Coming Apart: America and the Harvard Riots of 1969,” by Roger Rosenblatt (Little, Brown).

One of the more sobering books will be “The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found,” by Don J. Snyder (Little, Brown), telling of a man who loses his job as an English professor, winds up on welfare and finds a new identity as a house builder.

Finally, Pulitzer Prize winner David Remnick serves up “Resurrection: The Struggle to Build a New Russia” (Random House).

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For sports buffs, Roger Kahn’s memoirs of writing about baseball’s golden age and the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s will be covered in “Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art and Writing About It Was a Game,” (Hyperion). Meanwhile, Spike Lee’s observations on his favorite sport are featured in “Best Seat in the House: A Basketball Memoir” (Crown).

Self-help and motivational books range from the supernatural to political activism, and this year’s crop includes “A Change of Heart,” by Claire Sylvia and William Novak (Little, Brown & Co.), the story of a heart transplant recipient who takes on the traits of the person whose organ she received. “Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber,” by David Gelernter (Free Press), is the testimonial of a man who lived through an attack by the terrorist, while “The Rights of the Dying,” by Los Angeles-based activist David Kessler (HarperCollins), critiques the right-to-die movement.

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If you’re looking for something lighter, there’s a bounty of raunch and irreverence coming your way: Broadway Books will publish Linda Jaivin’s “Eat Me: What Women Really Talk About When They Talk About Men,” and Dutton will dish up “The Gay Quote Book,” by Brandon Judell (sample from RuPaul: “You’re born naked and the rest is drag”). Meanwhile, two books counseling women and men, respectively, are “Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well,” by Ashton Applewhite, and “What Does She Want From Me Anyway?,” by Holly Faith Phillips with Gregg Lewis (both HarperCollins). Finally, as the millennium approaches, spiritual counseling is available in “The Wit and Wisdom of the 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000” (HarperCollins), a book reuniting the comedy duo of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.

In one of their famed routines, Reiner asks the old man the secret of his long life, and he answers: “Don’t run for the bus, there’ll always be another.”

Publishers might heed that advice, and reconsider their perennial, superheated pursuit of the next bestseller--the book that costs them $4 million but is sure to earn twice that in sales. Will they ever learn?

Without a doubt.