People like - or will accept - or let themselves be told they like - all sorts of crap. Look at most prime time television. Look at most movies. For that matter, think of most of the Legolas/Aragorn slash out there. :D Lots and lots of stuff that really has no justification for existance except that people will watch/read any old crap. And I think how they did that is that if you can market it right so that people don't *feel* like they are buying a trashy romance, and have a little bit of luck, trashy romance/borderline porn is what a lot of people *actually* want to read. Way more than want to read a well-plotted young adult novel about wizards. Seriously. Where's the porn? :p Of course, how do you do it with some particular book? That's the million dollar question.
On the "real" book question - I haven't paid attention enough to how they did it. But it's pretty clear that they did. They put it out in a quality hard cover, and marketed it as edgy, and sold it for whatever you sell a hard cover for these days, instead of putting it out in an instant paperback with cheesy artwork, for $6? I'm sure there's a lot of marketing and packaging going on there.
Eh. What do I know? But in a way, I'm glad to see a book do well, even a crappy one. Just keeps people's minds open to the next good one that comes along.
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On the "real" book question - I haven't paid attention enough to how they did it. But it's pretty clear that they did. They put it out in a quality hard cover, and marketed it as edgy, and sold it for whatever you sell a hard cover for these days, instead of putting it out in an instant paperback with cheesy artwork, for $6? I'm sure there's a lot of marketing and packaging going on there.
Eh. What do I know? But in a way, I'm glad to see a book do well, even a crappy one. Just keeps people's minds open to the next good one that comes along.