Some of this morning’s commentary on Motoko Rich‘s article about The Shack focuses on the notion that the NY Times is coming late to the story of the “surprise bestseller” about a man who spends a weekend with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in some of their most unusual manifestations yet. But I was actually struck by the story’s final paragraph:
“[S]ome booksellers said they were not sure that non-Christian readers were interested,” Rich reports. “At Rainy Day Books, a literary independent bookstore near Kansas City, Mo., Vivien Jennings, the owner, said she had sold only nine copies in four months. ‘The buzz never made it here,’ she said. ‘What it tells me is that it is still pretty much restricted to the Christian audience.'”
I’m assuming that by “here,” Jennings means her own bookshop, and I’d be really curious to see the Nielsen Bookscan figures for sales in Kansas City (along with the tally from Wal-Mart and other outlets that don’t report to Nielsen). Because when a bookseller says “the buzz never made it here,” that suggests more about the bookstore to me than it does about the readers. The way I see it, a bookstore isn’t just a place where buzz comes but a place where buzz flourishes—and if a bookstore doesn’t have any enthusiasm for a given title, and doesn’t do anything to call attention to it, then, sure, the book can just sit there and sell a copy every other week to some random curious customer. But I wouldn’t say that in and of itself is enough to make a conclusion about the book’s audience…