Awhile back, I remember Dan and Henry discussing on bloggingsnores.tv that blogging is a good way to flog books. Blogging can fill the gap of weighty book reviews in mainstream papers. At the time, I agreed with them. I watched how Linda Hirshman was able to leverage all the negative blog buzz about her article in American Prospect into free publicity for her upcoming book. She was on the Today show pushing her book all because we kept writing about how much we hated her.
Smart, thought I. In fact, I’ve been pushing my dad to follow her lead. He has a book coming out this fall with Yale University Press, and it has the potential for a mainstream audience. One reviewer told Yale that his book was too good for them. So, we’ve been plotting a Hirshman-style, blog-flog fest.
I’m not so sure that is a good idea now.
Today’s Times reports that only sold 4,000 copies of her book were sold. Mainstream publishers don’t even break even until they hit about 10,000 copies. Did I snicker? Oh, yes I did.
Coincidentally, Hirshman has an op-ed in today’s Times with more of her naughty mommy stories. So, maybe blog buzz doesn’t lead to book sales, but it give you a wider stage for crazy ideas. Largely due to blog buzz, Hirshman has won the op-ed page in the Times and the Washington Post. Having that large of a stage has other rewards. Books sales be damned. God, I should just stop writing about her.
Apt. 11d 
Oooo, I’m just loving how the article implies that the problem is that SAHMs are really just too avoidant to read an entire book on the subject. It would hurt our wee little heads to think that hard about how terribly, terribly much our lives suck, you know?
(Never mind wondering if the point to be taken from this is that appearing to be actively contemptuous of your target audience might perhaps not be the best way to convince people to buy your book…)
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Very true, Phantom Scribbler. Most working mommies are too tired and have too little spare time for this stuff, and SAHMs aren’t going to want to pay to be insulted for a couple hundred pages.
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Her most recent op-ed is less gratuitously insulting than much of what Hirshman writes, which is probably a good thing. Her policy prescription is just like that of many rightists – get rid of the marriage penalty. As Phantom notes, her stance towards folks who don’t toe her line is generally unpleasant, and not everyone is yearning to drop $24.95 to get insulted, or told that her/his life is not being led as it should be.
I myself have limited time to read books that tell me I’m a jerk or my family life is non-optimal, as I need to run the kids to soccer, since my wife works late at an Important Job Where She Earns More Than I Do…
As to blog-festing your dad’s book, Laura – the two blog-fested books which I am most likely to buy soon, and because their authors have blogged about them, are Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and Joanne Jacobs Ride the Carrot Salad. I bought Lileks’ dreadful-childrearing-advice book as a gift after reading about its gestation in his blog for some months (and sneaked a look at it before it went into gift wrap – it’s cute and funny). All three of those authors have winning online personalities. All three are consistently interesting online. And each had an online presence during the production of the book which made me interested that it was coming, and its publication an event. It may be worth your, and your dad’s, while to look at how those books have done in sales and what might be possible to imitate.
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Ooh! I read Joanne Jacobs regularly and didn’t know she had a new book in the works. I suppose it’s a follow up to “Our School”?
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Hirschman’s book is very obviously a cash-in on the American Prospect piece and its publicity, and anyone who looks at it will know that it contains nothing new. So its pointless buying it, and obviously so. I presume that makes it different from your dad’s book. So you shouldn’t give up on your plan!
(Can I boast that my most recent academic book sold 1,500 in the first year in the US alone – my publisher is very happy — isn’t it a different world from trade!)
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harry b,
There seems to be a whole genre of books that are bloated versions of a single successful magazine article.
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Sorry AmyP – same book, she (or her publisher) retitled it – Ride the carrot salad was her original title for “Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the School That Beat the Odds is the story of Downtown College Prep, a San Jose charter high school that was created to prepare underachieving students to succeed at four-year colleges…As a ninth grader, Jorge read “ride the carousel” as “ride the carrot salad.” By spring of 10th grade, he was cracking Shakespeare jokes in the outfield. He’s now a sophomore at Cal State Monterey Bay. ”
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Harry, I was one of those 1,500. BTW, loved that profile of your dad.
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I’ll chime in and say that I haven’t bought Hirshman’s book, because, like Hewitt’s book, it seemed like it had been encapsulated in the long articles I’d already read by the same authors. That’s sounds like they shouldn’t have published the long articles, if they wanted to sell their book, but the real problem is that they didn’t have anything more to say than a long article. The rest of the books are blather.
Another book I feel that way about is the “Last Child In the Woods: Nature deficit disorder.” It talks about how our children are loosing a connection with nature (and confounds a lot of ideas), but the basic premise could be clearly outlined in a long magazine article (New Yorker, NYT magazine), and the rest of the book was very skippable.
What do I want to see that gives me more — real analysis of some sort (history, social science, economics). Rhona Mahoney’s book did that. Joan Jacob’s (do I mean that, I mean the work-family lawyer) books often do it. Anne Crittendon’s book is close, but not as good as the other two. Thinking about what I just wrote, I think that I think a lot of these books fail in satisfying me when they’re written by journalists.
They can fail (for me) when they’re written by experts too. The new academic book on time use in the american population is fantastic in terms of the data, but really fails in readability. I think there’s a huge amount of fascinating info in it, but it’s not accessible to many.
I read a lot, though, and I read a lot on child-raising so not having time is never my excuse for not reading something. I think it probably means something that I have not purchased Hewitt’s book, Hirshman’s book, Steiner’s book, or Warner’s book. People who want to sell books probably do need to figure out why. But, each of those writers are probably doing pretty well for themselves, as writers, with the book as part of the marketing strategy.
bj
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See now, I liked “Last Child in the Woods” more so for the memoir part of it than the argument (yes, conflated is a good word for it) – I bought it and I’m happy that I did. Though I might sell it on half.com.
On the one hand, I’m glad that I checked Hirshman’s book out of the library, but on the other, I’m sorry that my library’s limited budget constituted 1/4000th of those that *were* purchased.
I do think it was worth reading (yeah, all 97 pages of it LOL) for the over-the-top language.
PS I have reviews of both on my blog.
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Moms who read books take their kids to the library — SAHMs during the week, and working-outside moms on the weekend. These “mommy books” are exactly the sorts of books that, when I read, I take out of the library (or, more often, read a chapter each time I am in the library, and never actually check it out.)
Book purchases are for books that will likely be read multiple times, or are dense enough to take more than 2-3 weeks to get through (so, for us, kids’ bedtime story books and academic books).
I’m guessing Bookscan doesn’t cover libraries.
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I think Hirshman’s going down the path of Caitlin Flanagan. Initially viewed as provocative; given lots of press time by MSM; shrill. Where is Flanagan now? We’ve all written her off as a one-note nut job.
I personally love the fact that the American public in general totally sees past the surface. The media flips out about someone because they say ridiculous things. The public initially reacts but soon tires of the non-helpfulness of the whole interaction. We’re not buying these books because they’re not giving us any answers, IMHO.
Interestingly doesn’t Crittenden also argue for reforming the tax code, just like Hirshman is doing here?
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Crittenden does argue for reforming the tax code roughly along these lines. Its a sensible, good, reform, for several reasons not just gender equality reasons. But it is unlikely to have much effect at the high end of earnings (which is what she cares about) because 1) the tax code is so complex that it will not be transparent what the effects are and ii) for such a reform to be carried ouot in a fiscally neutral way, couples who are both high earners will still pay similar taxes, and in most couples, given the stringency of the workplace preference for proper fulltimers, it won’t makes sense for both parents to reduce their workhours equally. Finally, given the availability of significant amounts of pre-tax retirement saving, its not clear that moderate earning women do face high marginal tax rates, if they have a preference for saving. It would, however, make a difference to lower earners, and families where mothers don’t earn much.
The UK has this, and a radically simpler tax code than the US (so it is pretty transparent). Participation patterns are similar to the US, but this may be for different reasons.
Thanks for buying my book, Laura! And, yes, the piece on my dad was lovely.
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Bah! I was hoping that once I had enough site traffic I could ask for donations and never have to work again. Alas!
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Actually, Jen, Flanagan has a very well written and affecting article about abortion in the latest Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705/caitlin-flanagan-abortion
a good step-back-from-cant corrective to the just-a-lump people and the it’s-ensouled-don’t-harm-it people at the same time. She is a spectacularly good writer, with a distinctive and beautifully developed style. So I guess I’m not in your ‘we’. Sorry.
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dave s,
Actually “it’s-ensouled-don’t-harm-it” is an argument that you really don’t hear at all. The basic pro-life argument is biological and ethical rather than religious: that the fetus is a human being, and deserves the same sort of protections which we grant to other human beings.
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Dave S, if Flanagan is backing away from her cant, then good for her. But the blogosphere is filled with detailed critiques of her past writing, where she contradicted herself even within the same piece. How about the time she went on Colbert and ranted against date night? At least in the past, the woman made no sense.
But that said, if Flanagan’s public humiliation is ending with her taking a hard look at her opinions and reigning herself in, then it’s all good.
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A lot of writers seem to be victims of their own success. Some stop letting editors help them (see J.K. Rowlings and Florence King and many others). Others go the way of Maureen Dowd and Ann Coulter, turning to cheap unfunny “jokes” and phoning it in. Others write too much and too often for the number of ideas they have to express (Brooks and Steyn, but fortunately not all the time). Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first give a weekly column!
If Flanagan can pull herself together and avoid these traps, she’ll do very well.
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