played the P-list like a violin

[Kevin Troy]

Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to incompetence.

As one of those younger folks in publishing (alas, not at Penguin), I'm 
convinced that Amazon posted it early by mistake.  They post stuff 
early/incomplete all the time when they receive the publisher's files. 
Hell, they've done weirder things with my .org's books.

Web marketing and other "viral" techniques are usually reserved for books 
that have a speciality/niche audience and therefore a low publicity 
budget.  Penguin doesn't need to hire some hip consultant to create buzz 
among P-listers -- Pynchon is guaranteed reviews in the mainstream 
media, and said listers will notice that for free.





On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:26:33 -0700 (PDT)
> From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
> Subject: played the P-list like a violin...
>
> ...I think that may have been the phrase Mr Mackin
> regarding the JS intervention that led to a book that
> tried topiggyback M&D.  It's happening again, only
> this time it's Pynchon himself, if my suspicion turns
> out to be true.
>
> Intriguing that the Penguin press person apparently
> denied knowing anything about that Book Description
> being posted to the book's page at Amazon -   I'm
> prepared to be proven wrong, but I believe this (the
> denial - or maybe she simply didn't know what somebody
> else in the campaign is doing) to be just part of an
> online promotional campaign designed to keep word of
> mouth buzzing, some of the younger folks at the book
> publishers are quite hip to so-called "viral"
> marketing strategies and how to stimulate online
> communities like Pynchon-l, the lit-bloggers, etc.
>
> I'd be shocked if it turns out that somebody
> penetrated Amazon.com's systems surreptitiously and
> somehow hacked that Book Description onto the Untitled
> New Novel page without authorization (as some folks,
> including some on Pynchon-l) - that would represent a
> major security failure and would be, I expect, widely
> reported in the computer business press. Anybody heard
> about it yet?
>
> Bottom line,  Pynchon's publishers, with Pynchon's
> permission if not active collusion,  are teasing his
> core readership, and that this is building up to a
> major book publishing event.  I wouldn't be surprised
> if Pynchon himself speaks publicly or makes some sort
> of appearance related to the book (maybe he'll crash a
> Prof. Irwin Corey event) - it's a career milestone I
> don't see any author being able to pass up.
>
> http://pynchonoid.org
> "everything connects"
>
> http://OnlineJournalist.org