The Great Greene Challenge
The Great Greene Heist goes on sale today! Have you taken the Great Greeene Challenge? Here's my post from a couple of weeks ago:
Author Kate Messner threw down a challenge this weekend. “At the end of the day, publishing is a business that needs to make money to survive. Given that reality, the best way for readers to ask for more diversity in children’s literature is not with words and tweets and blog posts alone but also with dollars.” She picked THE GREAT GREENE HEIST, a wonderful middle grade coming out in May by the incomparable Varian Johnson, and challenged everyone to preorder a copy to show that yes, we want great books that also have diverse characters. (and a cover showing an African American boy front and center!)
Bookstore Eight Cousins got involved, challenging Odyssey Books to a handsell-off. I love this idea and proposed opening it up wide.
So here’s the game: what single bookstore can sell the most copies of THE GREAT GREENE HEIST in its first month? It comes out May 27, so from May 27 to June 27. (If the bookstore has multiple locations, then the numbers are counted by individual stores.) To the winner goes the spoils! How can you help?
1. Are you an author? Care to sweeten the pot? If you’re going to BEA, please bring me something to add to the treasure chest going to the winning bookstore. Signed books, bizarre items, a box of chocolates, anything fun you think the winning booksellers would love.
2. Are you a reader? Contact your local bookstore. Let them know about the Handsell-Off (if they don’t already) and pre-order your copy of THE GREAT GREENE HEIST. Let’s get everyone excited about it! Let’s get this deserving book (and author!) on the NYT bestseller list!
3. Are you a bookseller? Read the book and handsell like crazy!
This is going to be fun. Common wisdom often states that books starring POC can’t be best sellers, especially if the POC is on the cover. I’m eager to blow that out of the water. In ten years, let’s look back on that outdated belief and laugh.
UPDATE 2 (ignore all previous updates!): The party’s on, bookworms! John Green threw down a gauntlet of his own: “Any store in the U.S. that can handsell 100 copies of The Great Greene Heist in its first month will get 10 signed copies of TFIOS. I’m a huge Varian Johnson fan and really want to see this book succeed. Winning stores can email me: sparksflyup -at- gmail.”
And The Great Greene Heist author Varian Johnson helped clarify the sitch:
"1) One package will go to the bookstore that sells the most copies of The Great Greene Heist.
2) The second package will be a random drawing of all the bookstores that have “signed up” for the challenge (no purchase necessary, just need to know who you are).
3) A separate set of goodies (provided by me) will go to the winners of each “one-on-one” challenge.”
If you’re an indie and want to participate or an author and want to donate, “email me at vcj (at) varianjohnson (dot) com, or send me a tweet at @varianjohnson.”
Also, Varian Johnson is donating $1.50 for each book sold the first week (starting today!) to Girlstart. Wahoo! Let’s do this!