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'Devil May Care' Enters The US Book Charts

Solid debut for Sebastian Faulks' James Bond novel

Post your predictions on how bad Devil May Care will be marketed in the United States.

Here are some likely scenarios:

Entertainment Weekly and Time will be the only magazines to review the novel. Both reviews will be favorable but few readers will be able to find the review hidden inside the magazines.

In the nation's bookstores, employees will throw up between 2 to 20 copies of the book in an obscure location on the eve of it's May 28th. Ian Fleming's Bond novels will be nowhere in sight because of course selling the books near each other wouldn't make any sense.

Blossoming Bond fans will come in to purchase Devil May Care as well as a Fleming novel or two but will only find a copy of the Casino Royale tie-in and Doctor No on the self.

Nice thread, Captain Bringdown.

It's not my fault Americans get screwed consistently when it comes to Bond novels. I once saw an ad for SilverFin in Nintendo Power but that's it. How sad.

Yeah, you're right Righty, it's a shame US publishers haven't offered up even a fraction of the promotion we see in the UK. But it does help prove the argument that if you market a Bond book properly you'll have a bestseller...and if you don't, you won't. The Young Bond series is the best evidence of that.

But I'm not counting DMC and Doubleday out. We have seen some nice stories in the press, 100 of the Bentley specials are headed for the U.S., and there is this U.S. website. It's clearly not going to be equivalent to Penguin's UK push, but I don't think it's going to be ignored as badly as past continuation novels.

I haven't seen any promotional stuff at all. Of the two bookstores I frequent, only one has any of the Fleming novels. The other had CR for a while, but I haven't seen it lately. But I reserved my copy of DMC from them.

I looked for one of the Young Bond novels at the local Barnes & Noble. They didn't have any of those and had about half of the Fleming Bonds - but I had to search to find them.

I doubt DMC will be well-marketed, but Amazon will send my copy on release day, so it won't really affect my enjoyment of the book.

I just hope the book comes to Mexico.. or at least I can order it.

Considering the print run in the US is 250K copies, I think they're obviously looking for something that Bond hasn't seen here in a long time - perhaps never. I would expect a fairly good push in the next few days from Doubleday.



Keep up with the news. Barnes & Noble bought a ton of copies. They're even quoted as saying they expect the book to be a blockbuster and definite bestseller. I don't know how well the book will be marketed, but on May 28th when you walk into B&N, I bet it's sitting there right at the front.

Fleming's are always in and out and at my B&N and they were sold out of DoD last I was there. They had good space in the "young adult" section though - the week before the release of DoD I happened to be there and I only barely found the books. So it was an improvement.

Americans don't even care about the Bond films*, so it's no surprise that a Bond novel by some stiff-assed Brit no one's heard of called Sebastian Fox or whatever is gonna sink like a stone in the States. It's like trying to interest the British in baseball or Garth Brooks. It's just the way it is. As Bond fans, we should be used to this by now.

*At least, not compared to people in other countries.

Oh, I think Americans care about Bond. I think they love Bond. Think...I know they love Bond! But I don't think Americans revere Bond the way Brits do. Bond is entertainment, not a national treasure. And only them there educated folk ever hear of this feller named Fox.

I have not seen any kind of advertising yet, but I don't imagine it will be as bad as Righty described. Guardian Angel was one of their special "side of shelf books" (I have no idea what you actually call them) and had a decent number of copies. I can only imagine a "proper" James Bond book will receive more attention.

It is as zencat said. We love James Bond, but we don't revere/worship him.

That honor is reserved for Rambo.

It sells on a number of levels - here, it's not just some James Bond but of interest amongst the right-thinking as a literary whimsy by a credible author.

I expect that Mr Faulks will be extremely disappointed if this book doesn't work in the USA.