My name is Zita, and I am the thirteenth of thirteen princesses. My twelve sisters have become the subject of legend, even in faraway kingdoms, but I am sure you have never heard of me.
...and so begins The Thirteenth Princess, Diane Zahler's debut middle grade novel. It's a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," except it's from the point of view of their little sister Zita, who gets stuck working in the kitchen. When she realizes that there's a curse on her
It's AWESOME. When I first read it, it immediately reminded me of all my favs by Gail Carson Levine and Shannon Hale. I LOVED the main character, the fairy tale world, the story, and the prose, and I feel lucky to have witnessed this book's acquisition.
It seemed like everything was going well.
But sometimes, it's not as dramatic as outright rejection. Sometimes, the bookstore just doesn't stock the book on release day. (You know what release day is, I promise. Remember the midnight parties whenever a new Harry Potter or Twilight book was released? That was the release day for those novels, but not every book gets a party)
So, as one of the book's earliest supporters, I eagerly anticipated the Thirteenth Princess's release date. For the big day, I had a plan, and I had a Borders gift certificate that I had been saving since Christmas. (All other book lovers out there know how hard that was for me.) I would make the scary drive down to town through scary highways, purchase that beautiful book, and then do a cafe crawl at lunchtime where I would read the Thirteenth Princess with the cover prominently displayed. Easiest guerilla marketing ever.
My plan had a flaw. I didn't plan for the possibility that the book wouldn't be at the bookstore. It wasn't at Borders. It wasn't even down the road at Barnes & Noble. I was so upset that I didn't eat lunch at all. :-(
I'm not sure why it wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that there's two dates associated with the bookstores: the release date (when the publishing houses are obligated to get it to the stores and when the stores are able to shelve it), and the pub date a few weeks later (when the stores are obligated to have the books on the shelves). I think the poor bookstore staff is already overworked, so it's possible that they didn't have a chance to stock the Thirteenth Princess.
It was there when I returned to town a week later. I got to do the cafe crawl thing, parading the book in downtown Bozeman, so my plan wasn't completely ruined.
However, most readers aren't as determined as I am, and marketing plans are geared toward these dates.
Let's say, you need to buy a book for your ten-year-old niece's birthday party, and you were intrigued by the Thirteenth Princess's book trailer. You go to the bookstore to pick it up, but it's not there. Are you going to go to several stores looking for it? No, you're going to find something else your niece might like, get it wrapped, and make tracks to her birthday party before they eat all the cake.
The other thing is placement at bookstores. At Borders, I actually found the Thirteenth Princess on one of those tables around the kids section (but sadly, I didn't think to take a picture - I was just so relieved it was there). Publishing houses pay the bookstores for that privilege, by the way. I believe it's called "co-op," and it's a standard for most marketing plans.
This is where I found it at Barnes and Noble.
The author's last name is Zahler. That means the bottom shelf of the last bookcase of the Independent Readers section. The outward facing position is good (and highly coveted - don't know if publishers pay for it), but if I wasn't already looking for it, I doubt I would have picked it up.
I'm sure my cafe crawl/guerilla marketing made all the difference, though. ;-)
