Sam Walton made himself famous by selling things in a big way. The publisher of the legendary merchant's autobiography has adopted that tidbit of retailing wisdom.
Armed with radio and print ads, excerpts in three leading magazines and 4,000 life-size cardboard look-alikes of Walton for bookstore displays, Doubleday Books is orchestrating an unprecedented publicity drive to promote the story of the dust-bowl dime-store operator who founded the Wal-Mart chain.Doubleday has printed 850,000 copies of the $22.50 hardcover "Sam Walton: Made In America, My Story," a record for a first printing of any business biography. They're due to arrive in bookstores nationwide starting Friday.
The publisher, who spent roughly $4 million just for the rights to Walton's memoirs and approximately another $1 million to promote it, has undertaken a calculated strategy to give the book the broadest possible reach.
"I think this book crosses over being a simple business biography. It's an inspirational story as well," Marly Rusoff, a Doubleday vice president and publicity director, said Thursday. "This is not your average business story."
Walton died April 5, at age 74, after a prolonged battle with bone cancer. He made himself and his children multibillionares with the rapid expansion of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, Ark., now the nation's biggest discount retailer with more than 1,700 outlets in 42 states.
A self-effacing family man who lived in a modest 3-bedroom house, drove a pickup, washed the dinner dishes and hunted quail, Walton is considered a folk hero, not only to his company's 385,000 employees, but to leading business executives and politicians who see him as an American rags-to-riches story.
Doubleday has sought to capitalize on that appeal, spreading the word through national radio ads, a full-page display in The New York Times Book Review and prepackaged stories on the book for use in small newspapers.
The book's jacket is crammed with accolades from luminaries ranging from presidential aspirant H. Ross Perot to General Electric Co. Chairman John Welch.
The pubisher's publicity efforts also have been helped substantially through a serial deal with the Time magazine group. Excerpts are prominently featured in the latest issues of Time, Fortune and Money.
Not coincidentally, Walton's biographer is John Huey, a senior editor at Fortune who first began dogging the publicity-shy Walton for an audience back in 1987. Walton agreed in 1988, backed out in 1989, and finally agreed again last March after it was clear he was dying.
Bill Barry, a Doubleday vice president and deputy publisher who led the effort to acquire Walton's memoirs, said the aggressive national promotion was based partly on the multiple audience the book is aimed at.
"A lot of bestsellers are driven by California and New York, and the simple fact is that Walton and Wal-Mart don't have the presence that other business people do," Barry said. "What counters that is his renown in the heartland is of mythic proportions."