Melville House Books

Confession: I watch terrible, terrible television.  And for that, I blame the internet.  Mostly because I simply don’t have time to sit down at 8:00 PM on Tuesday night to tune into my favorite show.  Well, that and I don’t actually have cable (or, currently, a working television).  But with the internet, I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want.  And so I do.  I also have to confess to being rather addicted to police procedurals.  So that’s how I fell down the slippery slope and started watching “Castle,” a decently funny show in its own right that every couple of weeks I catch up on.

I’m probably late to this one, but the other night I realized that “Castle” is one heck of a book promotion.  Let me explain.

The basic outline of the show is this: the main character, a man named Richard Castle, is a bestselling millionaire crime novelist in search of a new subject.  He pairs up with a cute lady cop who will become the basis for his next book series.  Or rather, series of books.  Her name in the book becomes “Nikki Heat” and book one becomes Heat Wave.

Now I thought this was hilarious.  Bad titling, aggressive agent, book party bash, secret galleys–I love watching the romanticization of the publishing industry unfold on screen.  But then I was perusing the Amazon bestseller lists the other day…

…and there was Heat Wave!

What?!

It took me a while to put together the pieces (by the way, thanks for helping with that, Amazon.  I had to leave the site to figure out that I’d fallen for a hoax).  Apparently the writers of the show had actually collaborated to publish a book.  And that book is selling like crazy!  In fact, Amazon currently appears to be out of stock.  Not that I’m going to buy it, but if I did… I’d have to wait 1-3 weeks for it to ship.

I’m still trying to figure out what this says about the publishing industry.  Is there hope yet for multimedia tie-ins that don’t involve chopping up a book and inserting videos?  Can a book all of a sudden be extra promotion for a television show?  Or is this a bad thing, that we might need a television show to make a book a bestseller?  Is this proof that a book can no longer successfully stand on its own?

The jury is still out on this one.  But it is good to know that some publishers still have a good sense of humor, and are willing to take some risks and try out quirky new projects.  Whether it will end well or end badly… I’m willing to stick around and see.