A million books sold in one day!

[B.R.Stateham]

Dan Brown's new book sold a million copies on its first day. A million copies. Take in this, along with James Patterson's megablock deal, and I would suggest the health of the publishing industry is, in some respects, quite healthy.

How the hell does an author sell a million books? There are lots of well-known authors out there who have good reputations and a sizeable following. But they don't come close to hitting the numbers like Brown's new book did. I think this is a perfect example of a publishing house deciding on which author to push. . and when they push hard. . . it becomes amazing the numbers they can stir up.

[Jack Getze]

There are 80 million copies of THE DA VINCI CODE in print. Maybe 12.5% liked it enough to try the new one right away.

The critics of his day didn't like Dickens, or Shakespeare, either. And everytime we writers complain about Brown's success, I think we sound jealous.

[I. J. Parker]

Oh, I love that Grisham quote. Thanks much. :) As I've been saying all along. The bestsellers get picked by the non-readers, the ones easily distracted.

[John McFetridge]

One of the big complaints we ued to have in Canada was that publishers were only interested in "literature" and we never developed any popular culture, relying totally on Americans for that.

There are a couple of interesting articles floating around online today. In one, Philip Pullman complains that Dan Brown's characters are, "completely flat and two-dimensional," and that, "His basic ignorance about the way people behave is astonishing, talking in utterly implausible ways to one another."

And in another, John Grisham says it doesn't matter: “If I try to understand the complexities of the human soul, people's character defects and those types of things, the reader gets distracted.”

In thelate 70's the movies started to become "get rich quick" schemes and it ruined them. Books may stand a better chance to avoid that, if only because of small presses. We may have to look beyond the headlines to find interesting books, but at least they're still there.

[I. J. Parker]

Combination of simple-minded plot and style plus a theme that is current plus extra heavy promotion.

Actually, it just occurred to me that publishers would really look bad if they only published the very few names that rack up sales like that. Clearly, they need the rest of us to validate their profession.