“On Such a Full Sea” by Chang-rae Lee

Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea releases tomorrow. Here are a few things you can do to let your customers know. (Remember, I list the easiest first. Do what you can. Ignore the rest.)

  • Post his #shelfie on Facebook.
  • Research your database to find his current fans. Who in the past has purchased Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered? Give them a call or send a personal e-mail. They’ll be glad you were thinking of them.
  • Publisher’s Weekly gave On Such a Full Sea a starred-review which can be found here. NPR posted an interview with Lee here. And read Andrew Sean Greer’s cover review of the novel for The New York Times here. Share them with your staff and tweet them to your followers.
  • Riverhead Books teamed up with MakerBot to create a limited-edition 3D printed slipcase for On Such a Full Sea, which will be released on the same day. One copy in the store would make a fantastic display and will give you something extra to talk about with your customers. But even if you don’t have the limited-edition copy, you can share socially with your customers through photos. I found this great pic of Chang-rae Lee (above) using the 3-D printer on MakerBot’s website. If you plan to post his #shelfie, wait a day or two to post this one. You want to keep the conversation going. This image would be great on Twitter, too. Be sure to include @riverheadbooks in your tweet.
  • Has somebody on your staff read the book? Put a “recommended by” shelf talker by the book and make it a face-out.

Chang-rae Lee is the author of On Such a Full Sea. He is also the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

Beth Golay

Beth is a reader, writer, marketer and Books & Whatnot founder. Even though she knows better, she's a sucker for a good book cover and will positively swoon if a book is set in appropriate type. @BethGolay