The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley’s Writing Technique

Promoting Sales

DW's promotional postcard for his first book

Click on the images to enlarge

DW's suggestions for a book display in the 1930s

For a photograph of the actual display, see the Introduction to the Exhibition

Click on the image to enlarge

DW thanks one of Hutchinson's sales staff
for his help in 'Wheatley fortnight' (left)
and thanks the sales team with a printed
dedication (right)

Click on the image to enlarge

Just as he had been when he was a wine merchant, DW was an accomplished salesman as an author, leaving no stone unturned in seeking to promote his new books.

As described elsewhere in the Museum (see www.denniswheatley.info/museum/room.asp?id=6&exhib=8) in the early days he would contact his friends about his new books, visit bookstores, and send out promotional postcards to anyone who might be interested.

In his early books, on a couple of occasions, DW inserted references to earlier books in the text. In his second book, 'Such Power Is Dangerous', he had a film executive enthuse that he was going to film DW's first book, 'The Forbidden Territory', while in his later book, 'Contraband' he inserted a more factual footnote advising the reader that further information on two of its characters could be found in 'Black August'.

From the later 1930s when he was more established, DW took a close interest in marketing events, and as the second exhibit shows, he would take a personal interest in the design of promotional displays. The exhibit shows DW's hand-drawn ideas for a display; the actual display can be seen in the second photograph on the Introductory page of this Exhibition.

Later still, in the 1960s, when Hutchinson's held a 'Wheatley Fortnight', DW not only autographed copies of his books for Hutchinson's sales staff giving them individual thanks, but dedicated a later book to them in print.

However grand he became, DW did not forget that it was on these people - and his reading public - that his livelihood depended.