How to Market a Book All Stealth-Like

Okay, not that stealth-like, since it already earned a writeup in The New York Times. And what is "it," exactly? Well, some of the weirder product placement we've heard about in some time: Michener Center for Writers graduate Philipp Meyer netted some advance press for his debut novel American Rust... right smack in the middle of another author's book.

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, who shares an agent with Meyer, apparently liked his novel so much that she slipped a mention of it into her latest Kay Scarpetta book.

According to the Times:

"On Page 333 of Scarpetta, the title character, a forensic pathologist, arrives at the apartment of a murder victim and meets a police officer guarding the scene. 'He collected his jacket from the back of a folding chair, and a copy of Philipp Meyer’s American Rust from the oak floor under it,' Ms. Cornwell wrote."

The biggest tease is in the fact that Scarpetta was published Dec. 2, almost two full months before Meyer's book arrives in stores. (Its pub date is set for Feb. 24.)

Meyer will appear at BookPeople on Friday, March 13.