Anatomy of a Buzz: Does Getting Your Book on TV for a Few Seconds Boost Sales (If It's on...

According to Nielsen Media Research, 22 million viewers tuned in on Oct. 6 to watch the third episode of the second season of Lost, ABC's preternaturally compelling castaway drama. Which means 22 million people around the country saw a copy of Irish writer Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman flash across the screen, prompting something of a sales surge for the tiny Chicago house that reprinted the 1967 book in 1999.

An advance story in the Chicago Tribune, in which the book's imminent appearance on the show was announced, explained that Policeman's publisher, Dalkey Archive, had ordered an extra print run of 10,000 copies of the book in anticipation of a publicity blitz. Normally, a seconds-long screen shot wouldn't be worth that kind of gamble. But it would be foolish to underestimate the obsession that Lost viewers have for finding any shred of wisdom that might help them make sense of what the heck is happening on that island. Story continues below ?

Which is probably why one of the show's writers, Craig Wright, announced in that same Tribune article?which was later reprinted in many other newspapers?that reading The Third Policeman would be invaluable to fans seeking to unravel the island's mystery. "Whoever goes out and buys the book will have a lot more ammunition in their back pocket as they theorize about the show," Wright told the paper. "They will have a lot more to speculate about?and, no small thing, they will have read a really great book."

"That was really important," says Nathan Furl, Dalkey Archive's marketing director. "Instantly the people on the [Lost] message board started going crazy. It didn't matter how long the book was on the episode. After the Tribune article, the Amazon rank had been getting better and better. By the time of the episode, it was flirting with 100. After the episode, we beat The Da Vinci Code. It was very fun to watch."

The Book Standard's bestseller charts also began showing a rise in the book's sales after the Tribune article ran on Sept 21. Then the show itself aired, a big USA Today article ran and lifetime sales of Dalkey Archive's 1999 reprint of the book more than tripled. And demand seems still to be high. According to Furl, the house sold about 15,000 copies of O'Brien's book between 1999 and September of 2005. Since the show, they've shipped about 15,000 more to retailers looking to meet reader demand.

Of course, even with as dedicated an audience as the show has, an appearance on Lost doesn't have nearly the selling power as an appearance on 60 Minutes or Oprah or The Daily Show. After Oprah Winfrey announced, on Sept. 22, that her latest book-club selection was James Frey's memoir, A Million Little Pieces, weekly sales of the 2004 Anchor Books trade paperback jumped from around 1,000 to almost 4,000. The 2005 paperback bearing the Oprah stamp of approval, however, sold around 48,000 copies in the week Winfrey made her announcement, and has since sold more than 482,000 copies.

And when Harry G. Frankfurt's On Bullshit appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, its sales jumped. A later appearance on 60 Minutes propelled the book?which had an initial print run of 5,000?past the 186,000 marker, and on to victory with The Book Standard Bestseller Award in the philosophy category.

Not every television appearance helps sales, though. Mary Roach's 2003 bestseller, Stiff, appeared on the season finale of the 2004 season of Six Feet Under. Unlike Policeman, Roach's book had no mere cameo, but was actually discussed by the characters, and acted as a pivotal plot point. Still, according to Nielsen BookScan, Stiff's screen debut didn't seem to affect its sales one way or another. Then again, when Pulitzer Prize?winning New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston's Perfectly Legal, an examination of America's taxation system, appeared on an earlier episode, sales more than tripled, and the book hit No. 1 on The Book Standard's Law Bestsellers chart.

Still, whether The Third Policeman's sales double or triple over the course of the next couple of months, the screen shot on Lost was a godsend for the non-profit Dalkey. "We're in the business of putting out a certain type of book?for years we've been selling books that people don't yet know they want," says Furl. "So when the mass pop culture audience is running to us to get something, we can take off and do a million things that help sales."

Okay, but does the book actually help unravel the plot of Lost? "Well, it's interesting because I don't think they could have chosen a better book to either possibly answer questions, or possibly be incredibly frustrating," says Furl. "Everything that happens in it makes you think, 'Okay, that's definitely it, that's why they put it in the show!' And then you get to the next page. . . ."

Darn it.