Have you noticed that the ‘undead’ seem to live on forever!?! WHAT is the attraction with those vampires? And don’t you love the way your circulation keeps growing because of that attraction?
We here in Library Marketing are not immune to these attractions. If you’ve been to ANY library show since last November, you’ll have noticed the stacks of NIGHTLIGHT, the hilarious send-up by the Harvard Lampoon. At TLA so many picked up the display copy of NIGHTLIGHT that I had to get out the Windex and give it a once-over in the interest of cleanliness. And the comments were so over the top in praise I won’t even repeat any of them because you’d just think I made them up. Needless to say, if you haven’t ordered multiple copies of NIGHTLIGHT for your library, you are missing out. Here’s a brief quote from the fact-sheet:
“Complete with romance, danger, insufficient parental guardianship, creepy stalker-like behavior, and a vampire prom, NIGHTLIGHT is the uproarious tale of a vampire-obsessed girl (Belle Goose), looking for love in all the wrong places (with Edwart Mullen).”
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But, you say, my money should be spent also on more classic titles! In that case I send you to DRACULA by Bram Stoker in the beautiful, classic Everyman’s Library edition. Go back to the beginning and that crumbling castle in the Carpathian Mountains.
Still need more? Something more comprehensive with a different slant? Huge value for your collection dollars: THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES; THE MOST COMPLETE VOLUME OF VAMPIRE TALES EVER PUBLISHED. Compiled by Otto Penzler and with a Preface by Neil Gaiman, this is the biggest, hungriest collection ever assembled featuring over 80 stories by everyone from Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King. Guaranteed to “drive a stake through the heart of any other collection out there.”
If the idea of carrying around 1,056 pages of horror doesn’t appeal to all your patrons, gear up for the clever sectioning of this collection into the following subdivisions:
BLOODSUCKERS: THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES, VOLUME 1, mass market coming in July
FANGS: THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES, VOLUME 2, mass market coming in August
COFFINS: THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES, VOLUME 3, mass market coming in September
And one last treat! Coming in August from Karen Essex (author of LEONARDO’S SWANS and STEALING ATHENA), a new novel, DRACULA IN LOVE , asks the question: What if everything you knew about Dracula…was wrong? Now that question alone focused my attention like a laser beam. Told from Mina’s point of view, this is the truth of her personal voyage, and of vampirism itself. Join her in a visceral journey into Victorian England’s dimly lit bedrooms, mist-filled cemeteries, and asylum chambers — into the joys and terrors of a passionate affair that has lasted through the centuries.
Whew! My work here is done, and I sense the sunrise approaching. <whoosh>
-Marcia Lane Purcell