 | 19 Nov 08 |
A few days ago I was sitting in a meeting and felt my cell phone vibrate on my hip, indicating a call. I glanced down at the ID, saw it was a friend of mine from Florida, and made a mental note to call her back as soon as the meeting was over. I should have known better. This particular friend wasn’t one for idle chatter, so when she called six more times in the next ten minutes, I knew something was up and excused myself from the meeting to return her call.
She answered after a half ring, and instead of offering her customary ‘Hey,’ she shouted, “Congratulations!”
I glanced at the phone to make sure I’d dialed the right number.
“Girl, I’m so happy for you!”
“Umm . . . thanks?”
I heard her breath catch. “Oh my God, you mean you don’t know?”
All I knew was a group of people were waiting for me, impatiently I might add, in the boardroom across the hall.
“You hit their list, girl! You hit the list!”
“What are you talking about? Who’s they? What list?”
“The bestsellers list!”
My heart flip-flopped in my chest. “What?” There was no way Water Witch had hit any major list without me knowing. My publisher would have been on the phone in a nanosecond, blasting the news.
“The bestsellers list!” she shouted again. “I swear to God! I’m standing right in front of a sign that says; Number 8 Bestseller- Water Witch – Deborah LeBlanc.”
“Where are you, the Family Dollar Store?”
A loud tsk. “As if! I’m at Publix.”
“You mean the supermarket Publix?”
“Yeah! Hey, I’ll take a picture of it with my camera phone and send it to you.”
And she did.
Of course I was happy to see Water Witch sitting on any bestseller list, but the odd thing is, no one seems to know how it got there. My publisher didn’t know and neither did my agent. When both contacted Publix’s corporate office to find out how their bestseller status was determined, (i.e. how many copies have to be sold before it hits that list) all they said was, “We can’t release that information. It’s proprietary.”
Well, crap!
Oh, well . . . proprietary information or not, being on that list still made me do the happy dance. And isn’t that what life’s about? Grabbing all the happy dances when and while we can. 
Deborah LeBlanc is an award-winning author and business owner from Lafayette, Louisiana. She's also a licensed death scene investigator and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams.
She is the president of the Horror Writers Association, president of the Writers' Guild of Acadiana, president of Mystery Writers of America's Southwest Chapter, and an active member of Sisters in Crime, Novelists Inc, and International Thriller Writers Inc. In 2004, she created the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual national campaign designed to encourage more people to read, and founded Literacy Inc. a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting illiteracy in America’s teens. She also takes her passion for literacy and a powerful ability to motivate to high schools around the country.
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YAY! Congrats, Deb! Wonderful news. (And geez, you’d think the store would’ve at least alerted the authors’ agents!
by toni mcgee causey November 19th, 2008 at 8:14 amCongrats! You deserve it and much, much more.
by HollyD November 19th, 2008 at 8:16 amI remember seeing Water Witch prominately displayed in two stores I was in over the weekend, but having already gotten my copy from Amazon I didn’t pay close attention. Now I will have to go back and look.
Happy dance for you Deb!
by Cele November 19th, 2008 at 8:40 amWhat a fun call, Deb! Congratulations!!! We can defer to Allison Brennan’s incredible understanding of booksellers and distribution for an in-depth explanation of this…but suffice it to say, this means that Anderson (the huge distributor who stocks Publix and many hundreds of supermarkets and drug stores around the country) loves your book. And THAT is a very, very good thing! Well done!
by Roxanne St. Claire November 19th, 2008 at 8:52 amHow ever it got there congratulations! Definitely do lots of happy dances.
by Mary-Frances Makichen November 19th, 2008 at 9:02 amThat’s super! I’d be delignted just to find my book at any Publix — better yet, at Ralph’s, so my mom could see it.
We’ve started doing our grocery shopping after breakfast on Sunday mornings, and hubby waits (almost) patiently as I zip down the book aisle to check for familiar names.
Congrats!
by Terry Odell November 19th, 2008 at 9:25 amWoooo hoooo! Doing a very unattractive but enthusiastic dance for you
Must say that Water Witch has got a very prime location at Chapters Stores in Canada too! Wishing you many, many sales!
by Wendy Roberts November 19th, 2008 at 9:30 amWow, what great news! For you mostly, but for me, that means I might not have to wait to get to a ‘big store’ to buy a copy. =o)
by B.E. Sanderson November 19th, 2008 at 9:43 amWhy on earth are bestseller list rules so cloaked in secrecy? Well, we know why, I guess. It’s to keep us all from mutinying when we find out how insanely arbitrary and prone to mistakes the NYT list is.
But no matter how it happened, congratulations! It’s a sign of many, many people loving your books. And buying them!
by Louisa Edwards November 19th, 2008 at 10:15 amCongratulations Deb! I’m sure there are many more bestseller lists in your future!
by Jen Lyon November 19th, 2008 at 11:50 amThanks so much for the kind words, everyone!
Who knows….today Publix, tomorrow the Dollar Stores! lol
by Deborah LeBlanc November 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pmMost sincere congratulations. I hope next time it’s the NYT list.
G
by Gervasio November 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pmDeb, congratulations! Enjoy the thrill!!!
by Amanda November 19th, 2008 at 4:57 pmUrgh! I meant to email you Deb when I saw your book at my Bel Air–which is fabulous because we have a small book section. It was in the regular racks, but these are the racks that last month had Sherrilyn Kenyon’s backlist (4 of the books) and Stephen King titles etc. And it wasn’t just WW, it was the book with the snake (I can’t believe I can’t remember the title off the top of my head, but it’s a great cover!)
Anyway, getting into the grocery/drug stores is terrific because this is a huge segment of the buying public. Probably 25-30% of my books are sold in the groceries/drug stores over a six month period (some of the bigger stores will keep stock longer than little stores.)
So . . . the bestseller list at stores. It’s not really a bestseller list. I wasn’t going to say it, but I figure that knowledge is important. This is actually really good for you, because you publisher should have known–all those numbered slots at the groceries and walmart, etc. are paid co-op. Each distributor does it differently, but essentially, they look at the lead titles the publishers are offering (these are the titles where they’ll be paying co-op.) Then the distributors (Anderson, Levy, NewsGroup, Hudson, etc) will determine which books go in which slots. They decide this based on past sales, publisher support, co-op, orders, etc. One of the NewsGroup guys explained to me that they get the list and everyone (of the sales force) ranks the titles and that’s how the numbered slots are picked. These slots don’t actually reflect sales, but they ARE indicative of PAST sales.
So my guess is that your books have sold well in Publix in the past, and so they gave you a number slot. Maybe your editor knew nothing about it, but I can’t imagine that the publisher didn’t know because these are all paid co-op. Or maybe they paid the co-op and Anderson picked the titles and didn’t tell Dorch which titles.
Whatever happened, this is a good thing! Congrats!
by Allison Brennan November 19th, 2008 at 9:45 pmDeb, that’s so fun! I’m so excited for you. But I always knew big things were in your future….
by Natalie November 19th, 2008 at 9:50 pmHow exciting, Deb! As Allison said, this is a very good thing!
by Debra Webb November 20th, 2008 at 6:20 am