According to The Oregonian (Oct. 21).
The book game is not unlike the system baseball uses to cultivate new talent. It’s called the minor leagues, and the objective is to discover who can “play” at a higher level and who can’t. If you substitute the word “sell” for “play,” you have the fiction business in a nutshell.
As in baseball, publishers will promote a promising rookie to the next level and see what happens. Or more accurately, sells. If the numbers grow, then sooner or later the publisher may decide to give the rookie a shot at the Big Show. It’s called the “breakout book,” toward which the publisher throws significant marketing dollars, sponsors an author tour and generally hypes the book as The Next Big Thing, all in the hope that reviewers — the key to staying in the Big Show — and readers will agree.
is available on Amazon.com,
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