Broken Frontier

Warner Books (the publisher of David Baldacci and Nelson DeMille) and DC Comics (the largest English-language publisher of comics in the world and home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) announced today that novelist Brad Meltzer has become the first author to top The New York Times Bestseller List and the Diamond Comic Distributors Top 100 Sales Chart simultaneously. Meltzer’s new thriller The Book of Fate—which debuts atop the New York Times list on September 24—features a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, a disturbing secret buried in Masonic history and a 200-year-old secret code invented by Thomas Jefferson. Issue number One of Meltzer’s Justice League of America, which tells the story of the re-formation of the world’s greatest superhero team, anchored by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, is the overall top comic book in both dollars and units the Diamond Comic Distributors Top 300 Sales Chart for the month of October.
 
“There’s one name on the cover of every book, but only a fool thinks it’s a one-person show,” said Meltzer. “Warner built this. DC Comics built this. And most important, they built it together.”
 
“The appearance of THE BOOK OF FATE as the #1 title on the New York Times fiction bestseller list only days after its publication is not only a testament to the book's broad appeal and Warner's strong marketing campaign, but also indicates how the core audiences for both Brad's novels and his comic books have coalesced into a groundswell of interest and enthusiasm for all things ‘Meltzer,’” said Jamie Raab, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Warner Books.

“It's exciting to see this convergence of events, which demonstrates the cross-marketing potential of readers of comics and novels” said Paul Levitz, President & Publisher of DC Comics. “We're thrilled for Brad, and hope this spurs more people to sample the creative worlds of comics and graphic novels.”
 
 Warner Books and DC Comics teamed-up to create a unique and synergistic promotional campaign by publishing the first chapter of The Book of Fate in the pages of the eagerly anticipated issue number Zero of Meltzer’s Justice League of America. This cross-promotion provided comic book fans with an exclusive early look at The Book of Fate, a novel which is chock full of plot twists, conspiracies and double crossings that should resonate with comic book fans accustomed to jaw-dropping cliffhangers and deadly secrets.
 
The Book of Fate’s logo was featured prominently on the No. 12 car for Fitz-Bradshaw Racing in the NASCAR Busch Series at the Richmond, Va. race held September 8 at the Dover International Speedway. The idea came to Meltzer because a pivotal scene in the book’s opening chapter features a presidential assassination at a racecar event.
 
“People called all our marketing ideas ‘experiments.’  They weren’t experiments to me,” said Meltzer. “They were proof that a reader is a reader.”
 
Meltzer’s books have a total of almost six million copies in print, have spent over eight months as New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into over a dozen languages (from Hebrew to Bulgarian).