From 'Hello, UK!' to 'I'm Here All Week, Folks!': Bearing the Burden of Bestsellerdom

I happened to notice a few mornings back that my novel A Kiss Before You Leave Me had cropped up on the AmazonUK bestseller list for psychological fiction, between a World's Classics paperback of a Virginia Woolf novel and an ebook by Philip Roth.

I'm not sure how either of those authors would have felt about our juxtaposition; not much worse, perhaps, than about the tête-à-tête (if that's the word for it) that I seem to have interrupted. (All I know is that, on the basis of my knowledge of the works in question, two of the three authors would have insisted on reporting that Woolf was on top. [You see how difficult it is to talk about bestsellers without getting into sexual content.])

I know, however, that I'm delighted to be on this UK list. And not just as an indication that the book is 'selling internationally'. For some very important part of me, the UK is at least one of the centers of my cultural universe, and has been ever since I first arrived in London at the age of 20. (If I told you what role I saw Judi Dench in the West End on that visit, it would be needlessly hurtful for one or both of us.)

Bestseller lists, we all know, don't mean very much.

Except when it's your book that gets noticed that way.

Well.

Because I, rightly or wrongly, attribute this 'movement' in the UK 'market' to the current (very international and very broadly 'cross-vendor') 'sunshine deal' on A Kiss Before You Leave Me, I'm extending the 'deal' for one additional week, in all markets and through all participating vendors. (I admit that this feels like an overly American response, but I don't want to be too hard on myself.)

Thank you to every reader in every country who's found room for my work on their digital 'shelves', on their virtual 'bedside table'.

(If you're still having trouble getting hold of Kiss, consult the links in the column to the right, or follow this link to the bitly 'bundle' and link on from there. Or 'comment' below, and let me know what you need. Finally, if you just arrived and want to know what this is all about, here are all my blogposts labelled 'A Kiss Before You Leave Me'--although, by this time, it might be easier for you just to break down and read the book...)