Edan Lepucki , author of California , and Stephan Eirik Clark , author of Sweetness #9 , reflect on being supported by Stephen Colbert and other surprises in publishing.
This summer Stephen Colbert highlighted a dispute between book publisher Hachette (which publishes all of Colbert's books) and book-selling powerhouse Amazon by urging his viewers to purchase Edan Lepucki's California from independent retailer Powell's Books. Not long after, Colbert asked Lepucki to recommend her own favorite book by a recent Hachette author, and she chose Stephan Eirik Clark's Sweetness #9.
Here Lepucki and Clark discuss the surreal experience of receiving the "Colbert Bump," as well as the expectations and realities of being a first-time novelist.
Comedy Central / The Colbert Report / Via thecolbertreport.cc.com
Edan Lepucki: I recognize that I'm probably the luckiest novelist in recent memory, because Sherman Alexie, a writer I greatly admire, raved about my book on The Colbert Report, and then Mr. Colbert himself urged his viewers to buy it — on his show and on Twitter. I signed 9,000 pre-orders at Powell's Bookstore, there was a profile of me in the New York Times, my tour doubled in size, and I sold many books. I'm like a walking four-leaf clover.
Until this point, my absurd career fantasies included being a crossword puzzle clue (Four letters across, author Lepucki)… and, OK: dancing with Ellen DeGeneres to celebrate my National Book Award nomination. What has actually happened is shocking. I still can't believe that I went on The Colbert Report myself; for the appearance I wore a lot of makeup, my hair was curled like a poodle's, and I could barely breathe in my Spanx undergarments. But, hey — an authoress has to lean in, right? (By the way, Stephen Colbert is very nice.) The whole thing makes me giggle.
One of the greatest parts about this whole surreal turn of events is that I had the chance to read your book, Stephan, and recommend it on national television! I got to be a reader again. And we got to email, and share our joys and insecurities, and just, you know, be writers together. I also got the chance to meet Sherman Alexie and thank him in person for what he did for California. (On the plane headed to Seattle I read his latest collected stories, Blasphemy; it had been a couple of years since I'd read his work and, wow, I was stunned by the grace and punch of his work. What a writer.)
Stephan Eirik Clark: About a week after my book was mentioned on The Colbert Report, a colleague of mine at Augsburg College said, "It's like the hand of god has come down and touched you!" I wanted to remind this man that he was an atheist, but instead I nodded and smiled and agreed that I was incredibly lucky. And I was. With just one mention on that show (and thank you again, Edan and Stephen), millions of people became aware of my book, pre-orders took off, and I received a flurry of media attention that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. My first reaction was shock and gratitude, but after a while I felt no less positive about the state of books and readers in general. The Colbert Bump didn't get so much media attention and public support because everyone wanted to talk about me and my novel. People wanted to support book culture, to say that books and writers matter, and that we should be doing everything we can to ensure their continued existence, if not their success. In short, The Book is not dead!
Edan, your book, which I'd wanted to read since first learning of it in the Little, Brown catalogue, was actually one of the few novels unrelated to food that I had the pleasure of finishing in the months leading up to my book's release. (And as a former Angeleno who lived through the Riots, the Malibu Firestorms, and the Northridge Earthquake, I thought for a while it was a memoir of my old fantasy life, because I too had wanted to flee for the safety of some green place up North.) I'm sure you are experiencing the same thing — as your book makes its way out into the world, you find yourself hurrying into your local bookstore to buy every book that your own writing is compared to.
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