Within the mystery community, J.A. Konrath is something of a legend for his tireless, seemingly bottomless capacity to find new ways to promote his work and reach as many readers as possible. But his methods appear to work as they have landed him a contract extension with Hyperion for his Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels suspense novels, and with every book the publisher antes up more money on the publicity and promotion front. This time, with the impending publication of book #3, RUSTY NAIL, Konrath will be doing something unprecendented: hitting 500 bookstores in a two-month span.
How will he do this? As Wired finds out, GPS helps – a lot – if you want to get to eight bookstores a day. “I could punch in Borders or Barnes & Noble or Waldenbooks and it would not only find all of the ones within 50 miles for me, it would give me their phone numbers so I could call them first, from the car, to let them know I was coming,” Konrath said. “This could not have been done even three years ago. The fact that you could do it now was absolutely mind blowing for me.”
And Hyperion appreciates the effort, bigtime. “Joe works so hard, you want to do whatever you can to help,” said Charlie Davidson, a publicist at Hyperion.