How do you market a book written in a foreign language by an author who’s now dead, that was originally published 60 years ago, and has been overlooked by mainstream publishing ever since? This series takes an ongoing, insider’s look at the campaign to get Hans Fallada‘s Every Man Dies Alone on the bestseller lists, by Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson.

The hardcover edition of Every Man Dies Alone

As mentioned in earlier installments, it’s not easy to begin with for indie publishers to get publicity in the echo chamber of American publishing, and it’s especially difficult for old books written in foreign languages by authors now dead. It’s even tougher when you’re several months out in the market with a book and it’s not “news” anymore. (Which makes me think of a certain producer for whom my staff has often heard me express warm affection — when you call her to see if you can get her interested in a forthcoming book, says, “We treat books like news stories — call me back a few days before pub date.” When you call her back, she says, “We can’t put something together that quickly. I wish you’d called me earlier.” It’s a lesson in publicity: Some people just won’t say, “No.”)

All of which is nonetheless meant as set up for another important thing to remember about marketing a book: You don’t get any lucky breaks if you quit trying.

Yesterday was a case in point: Our campaign to resuscitate the reputation of Hans Fallada got a terrific shot in the arm from one of America’s leading newspaper columnists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune. In a moving column — which she called “The Rescue of Hans Fallada” — she said Fallada “reminded the world of the power of courage and persistence.”

It was the kind of column, from a major writer, publicists break their butts to attain. But that wasn’t how this one came about. Keller had simply discovered one of our Fallada titles — Wolf Among Wolves — on her own and tweeted enthusiastically about it. I got a Google alert on the tweet, and quickly sent her the deluxe, hardcover version of Every Man Dies Alone — and I’m not sure why, but I didn’t do something I always do religiously in such situations, which is include a press kit. I guess I was confident the book would speak for itself, as Wolf apparently had. There was something of the co-enthusiast about my reaction. And in any event, viola! Out of the blue, a major piece of mainstream media was the end result, a couple of short weeks later.

By day’s end — it’s now 12:03 am Monday morning in New York — each of our four Fallada titles has leapt up into the upper echelons of our quick-fix bestseller list, Amazon.com: The Drinker is number 10,843; Little Man, What Now? is number 4,353; Wolf Among Wolves is number 3,312; and Every Man Dies Alone, which had started the day at around 2,600, is now number 707.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Julia Keller

Is it all the Keller column, or is the TV commercial — running for four days now — starting to show an impact? It’s impossible to say for sure, but probably a little of each, although the fact that all four of our Fallada titles jumped simultaneously on Amazon make it seem likely Keller’s piece was the most influential — her column was about Fallada himself and it mentioned all of his books, as opposed to the commercial which is only about the lead title, Every Man.

We’ll know more when we see precise sales figures for the week when Bookscan releases them on Wednesday. It includes a breakdown of city-by-city sales.

But regardless of sales figures, the Keller column is a reminder of the most important thing of all when it comes to marketing a book: The book has to be good. Because when you’re operating outside the echo chamber, there always comes a point where the book is alone in a room with a smart critic like Julia Keller.