Jonathan Lethem, one of my favorite authors, has a short story collection coming out, How We Got Insipid. What's odd about this is that the publisher can't promote the book in the press:
[A]ccording to the press release accompanying the book, Subterranean is contractually obliged not to promote the work via the usual channels -- it can't send the book to newspaper or magazine reviewers or to the trade magazines like Publishers Weekly or Booklist. This is apparently an attempt to make sure Insipid doesn't cannibalize the sales of Lethem's big publisher work (although since Insipid has a print run of just 1500 copies it's hard to see why that's a real worry), or cause the newspapers and magazines in question not to review Lethem's other work because they just reviewed this.
Very odd, but I can't imagine they'll have trouble selling out the print run.
This sounds very like "smart marketing". Lethem would be an ideal candidate for buzz through viral and online marketing as he is "subterranean" etc. Great way to capture the interest of those all important "information gatekeeper" readers, who then go on to tell everyone else "of course you can't actually buy his book in the store...." etc. etc.