Last week, our Cool Idea of the Day showcased "Trust Fall," a promotion conceived by Jill Hendrix, owner of Fiction Addiction, Greenville, S.C. In January, she had sent an e-mail to customers sharing her enthusiasm for an unnamed, upcoming debut novel as well as her concern that readers might not be inclined to pick it up because of the title or cover. To encourage them to read a bit outside their comfort zones, she created a "Trust Fall" offer in which they could order the book before pub date with a money-back guarantee "if you read it but don't love it as much as we have." 
Now we can reveal the Trust Fall title: The Martian by Andy Weir (Crown), which is currently ranked high on both the IndieBound and New York Times bestseller lists. At Fiction Addiction, "So far we've netted 62 copies of The Martian, most of which were done through the Trust Fall promotion," said Hendrix. "We've had one return by one of my older female customers who is also a minister's wife. I was expecting that return and possibly one other from the moment the customers purchased."
She added that most of the feedback has been very positive. In addition to comments mentioned here last week, others included: "I hated it cuz it had me up until 2 a.m. last night! You were right that I never would have picked this up on my own." And: "I'm telling everyone at work about this book!"
Hendrix also noted that "62 copies is a lot for us if we're not hosting an author event. In comparison I've sold 70 copies of The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy and 28 copies of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert and those have been over the course of five months. I think I'm going to survey the participants at the end of March and see whether there would be any interest in this as an ongoing idea... perhaps the Trust Fall Bookclub."
