Sunday July 8, 2007
Talk of the blogs
THE success of Kam Raslan’s Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato’ Hamid Adventures took his publisher by surprise.
“It was printed in March this year and the second print was in May. We have sold about 5,000 copies and we are rather low in stock now. If demand holds, we will do a third print,” she adds.
Chong says the distributor, too, was taken aback by the immediate flood of orders and added that bookstores, once they realised they had a hot title, quickly responded by displaying the book prominently.
“It goes to show there is support for local writers when something new and exciting comes about,” Chong says, adding that she has yet to come across anyone who didn’t enjoy reading it.
She credits the strong sales to the buzz generated by the favourable reviews and online word-of-mouth: “It’s the talk of blogs!” she marvels.
According to her, Kam will attend the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, 2007, to be held on Sept 25-30 in Bali, Indonesia.
There are also plans to submit the book to the National Library for consideration for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award as well as to promote it at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
Related Stories:
Will the real Datuk Hamid stand up?
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