Marketing Elizabeth Chadwick

I was poking around in a used book section of a Barnes and Noble bookstore today and found an ARC of an Elizabeth Chadwick novel. OK, so this isn't that exciting because it's of a book published in hardcover in the United States in August 2004. Still, I thought, why not purchase it?

As it happens, this kind of decision-making has led to me owning a bunch of Chadwick's books. They're stashed away for the day when I actually read one, fall in love, and need to read all the rest immediately. After the years of shelf space they've been taking up, I better fall in love, or they better retain their resale value!

Anyway, this ARC was for THE FALCONS OF MONTABARD. I glanced at the back cover before shelving it and saw that under "Marketing" (e.g., St. Martin's marketing plans for the book) all that was listed was "Author Website". Now unless St. Martin's maintains Elizabeth Chadwick's Web site, this seems to translate into "Marketing: None".

I don't know how publishing works, so maybe it's to the publisher's credit that it at least produced ARCs for the book. And maybe it does other things not listed on the ARC. And maybe historical fiction as a genre isn't worth wasting much marketing resources on. What I do know is that lay person me was struck by the...minimalism...of this stated marketing plan for the book.

Being reminded (in my previous post) of how lack of publisher support can kill a career, it's wonderful that Chadwick has been able to continue publishing what she apparently loves to write and have dedicated fans help get the word out.