Few books by new writers are bestsellers in hardback: print runs are small and that's a lot of money to spend on a book by a writer you've never heard of. In fact, I can't think of a single one offhand. But you don't pay $400,000 for paperback rights unless you expect to sell a hell of a lot of them. Even today, let alone the 70s.
Do you have any source to contradict the fact that it sold a million copies before the movie? Sure, the movie (which also appealed to popular culture, so how does it help your argument?) made it clear that King's stories were popular in more than one medium. Made it clear that people liked his stories in more than one medium. People liked the book, and so they bought the book. The book, the story--and, from the links I've been reading, also the writing--was important. I know you don't want that to be true, but it remains a fact. If marketing is a magic wand to induce countless people to obediently buy or see whatever the marketing commanded them to even if they don't like it, then we wouldn't have major expensive failures. By the way, have you read any King? I'm not saying that you'll like it, but I'd like to know how personally informed your opinion of his work is.
Signet, apparently. I presume the original publisher decided to sell the rights when the hardback didn't do as well as they expected? Or maybe writers could manage to sell hardback and paperback rights seperately in those days.
It got a good review from the New York Times. I'm guessing that was part of it. But he absolutely didn't expect it.
But, "The Bachman book Thinner (1984) sold 28,000 copies during its initial run—and then ten times as many when it was revealed that Bachman was, in fact, King." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman King says he marketed very little. What does that mean? 28,000 copies might be normal for his 'very little' marketing. However, I accept the Bachman novels Rage and Roadwork were not as bad as all the others.
I probably have plenty of books on my book shelves that sold less than 28,000 copies in their initial (and possibly only) run. Those are decent sales numbers for an unknown writer. And, on your own numbers, that's twice as good as Carrie, which went on to make King a household name. So I'm not sure what your point is.
First, define success. Fame? Poe was famous and popular in his lifetime. Bach and Mozart were renowned in their own times and gained positions in courts thanks to their talents. Wealth? Lovecraft sold exclusively to periodicals; no matter how many copies of Weird Tales got bought up, he wasn't going to be paid further than the one time, per word rate they gave every other contributor. Poe was similar. Although he had collections published, his most well regarded work was published in flat rate paying periodicals. Beyond that, sometimes work just doesn't fit what's popular at the time. Robert E. Howard's most popular character at the time of his death was Breckinridge Elkins, a mountain man. Who's his most popular, well-known character today? Conan. He pretty obviously has. And why should I care what Joshi has to say? That's his opinion, one I don't happen to share. You regard Lovecraft and Poe quite highly, but I can find biting criticism of them. Joshi absolutely is a literary critic. The man has made a career out of it, as even a quick glance at his biography will reveal.
I think there's something to that. Back in the bad old days, it was impossible to become a bestseller if the publishers didn't get your books in just about every book store (airports being a great market as they were full of people looking for something to do on a long flight). But it's a bit of a circular argument, because they generally wouldn't do that unless the book was already proving popular enough to justify the push, or they at least expected it to be that popular.
Anyway, back on topic, I trust writers who've sold loads of books and, ideally, whose books I've enjoyed reading. Then I try out what they say, use what works for me and toss out what doesn't. And see whether they actually follow the advice themselves. King, for example, doesn't even follow all the advice he gives in his book.
It doesn't say anywhere that it sold a million copies before the movie. Wikipedia says the paperback was published a year after the 1974 hardback. Then, by the end of another year, it had made a million sales (coinciding directly with the popularity of the movie). The movie is not the book. They are very very different things. And the movie was very much marketed. I've read a lot of horror, and many of King's stories and a few novels (but a long time ago). Recently: Popsy, Herman Wook is Still Alive and Road Virus Heads North. I've said above, I found the style bland and the some plots full of holes. It's also verbose, with shallow, boring characters, and implausible. It's very readable, I'll give him that. And that's part of what makes it very marketable. People like an easy read.
I can't remember the last time I read a 'how-to' writing book looking for new ideas. I find them far better for reminding me of stuff I already know and as a general kick to get going. I don't find writing particularly easy, so I drop into habits of doing other things instead. Reading a 'how to write' book reminds me that I do really enjoy it once I've got started, so I should actually do that. For that, pretty much anyone semi-competent will do. New ideas I normally get from the stories I read, in a 'that-was-awesome-I-should-try-it' kind of way. Writing techniques, setting ideas, characterisation, whatever. Most recently it was the tense-shifting in The Fifth Season. SO GOOD.
According to Goodreads, the paperback of Carrie was released in April 1975. The movie was released November 1976. So no-one who bought one of the million copies of the book sold between April 1975 and April 1976 had seen the movie, though they might have heard that a movie was coming out. And the $400,000 for the paperback rights was paid long before the movie went into production.
The hardback was released in April, 1974. The paperback rights were purchased, interestingly, before the hardback was released, in May, 1973. A quote: "the paperback, released a year later, sold over 1 million copies in its first year" The latest date for "a year later" for the paperback would be April, 1975. The latest date for the end of "its first year" would be April, 1976. The movie was released in November, 1976. So the movie reached seven months into its own past and drove those million sales? Huh.
Well, the conversation started talking about bestsellers, so I'm referring to financial success. I agree Lovecraft and Poe have been criticised, but they are widely considered as giants in their fields, despite being neglected in their day. Okay, I was wrong about Joshi, but his criticisms are very easy to understand, and my quotes are not literary.
In a way, Lovecraft is kind of the anti-King. King's ideas aren't particularly original, but his writing turns them into great--or, at least, extremely popular--books. Lovecraft's ideas are great, but his writing is notorious for never using a short word where a long one would do.
The movie could have been marketed before being released (as they often are), and we don't know exactly when the million books were sold. They could have been around the start of 1976 or even later, during the advertising of the movie. 'A year later' does not necessarily mean 12 months. It could be a generalisation. And there is no source for this statement. We can only speculate. But this is all beside the point. King says: "The movie made the book, and the book made me."
The movie made the book more successful. The more-successful book made King more successful. Do you really think that King was agreeing with your argument that the success of the movie and the book had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the story? Do you really believe that a major movie was made based on...nothing? Because if the book has no value, the movie was made based on nothing. If the book has no value, someone paid $400,000 for the rights to distribute nothing. Why would anyone do that? If it's trivially easy to make a bestseller, why didn't the publisher and the paperback publisher just hire a high school student to write the text to fill the pages? The book, the story, the text, has no value, right? So why would the publisher pay one penny more than minimum wage for someone to write it? For whatever reason, and despite the associated logical fallacies, you seem deeply, almost desperately, invested in the idea that bestsellers are made by marketing and absolutely nothing else. My father believed that if he just kept buying their stuff, it was inevitable that he would win the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes. This feels similar. When people need to believe something, nothing can talk them out of it. You will believe this until your need to believe it fades, and no amount of logic or evidence will have any effect on your belief.
You're oversimplifying. A novel is not a story. The story might have some originality. The novels might be easy to read. It might appeal to a wide audience because it portrays mostly normal people, put into extreme circumstances. It might have inspired a movie. That doesn't mean it was a great novel. I didn't say the book had no value. I'm saying his novels are generally mediocre. The novel was seen as suitable material for marketing with the movie. Someone thought a good movie could be made, then thought the novel could be marketed as well, in combination, for profit. Someone paid good money because they saw a marketable novel, not necessarily a quality novel. Once again, you didn't read my posts properly. I never said marketing and nothing else are sufficient to make a bestseller.
Perhaps, but what about the writing? Is it necessarily the quality or the originality? If a publisher sees a writer who is prolific, easy to read, with some imagination and some ideas, and they think that can be marketed, then that is sufficient to create popularity with marketing. King has been aggressively marketed for so long, he himself is the product, not the books.
Like I said, King is one of the best writers around. Few readers care about the words in a book, they care about what the words do. Which is why King massively out-sells lit-fic. I appreciate James Joyce's crazy use of language in his later books, but I don't read them for fun.
I mean, I love King's advice and I really, really try to make my prose as invisible as his. I love invisible prose that I can suck down and not notice. That's my jam. When I want to read invisible prose, I care deeply about the words in a book. I care about them being so perfect that I don't notice them. I don't want to remember specific sentences for cleverness or beauty. I want the story. And it is hard to write invisibly. It really is. And King is a major outlier, outselling everyone, but it's my understanding that novels originally marketed as literary have been dominating the NYT Best Sellers list.
