More on the blurb brouhaha

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 26/07/2006, at 11:56 PM, The Great Quail wrote:

> Personally, the fact that Pynchon himself has *written* a blurb months 
> in
> advance of publication is the real news here, and worthy of buzz.

I agree, but I'd still contend that they got the most mileage they 
could out of that by exploiting the "mystery" of it. Serendipitous or 
planned, the "now you see it, now you don't" thing was what got the 
buzz happening, and it was what fleshed out the articles and got the 
bloggers going. Someone at Penguin had to have sent the blurb to Amazon 
in the first place, then someone at Penguin told them to take it down, 
then someone at Penguin told them to put it back up again, and then 
someone at Penguin sent them the title. Step by step. They didn't have 
to fork out a cent for advertising. And, it's not as though they're 
ever going to admit they planned it, eh ; )

December 5 release date gets your book delivered right in time for 
Christmas.

The new Penguin Classics Deluxe edition of GR with the cover art by 
Frank Miller, to be released just before the new one, was the other 
Pynchon story to do the rounds not long back. Lot of people had just 
been newly-introduced to Miller's work through Sin City, and there were 
lots of die-hard Miller fans before that, so the tie-in with Pynchon 
(which Pynchon himself asked for) was another clever stroke of 
marketing.

It isn't that the new book's being marketed to those of us who would 
have bought the book anyway (we were extras in the little scam, part of 
the "the internerd's crazy Pynchon cult" as one blogger put it), it's 
being marketed to new customers -- Simpsons viewers, film buffs etc. 
And "the new Pynchon" is being "branded" in a very particular way, 
through those Simpsons appearances and the blurb, and the Orwell intro 
too to a lesser degree. But with the Simpsons spots and the blurb he 
comes across as someone who can make fun of himself and the reputation 
he has earnt in the media through not giving interviews or having 
photos done or doing book tours. And people look at the info about the 
author or do a bit of googling and think to themselves, hey, that might 
be a book I'd like to get.

best