Jimmy Donaldson would like you to sit down with a book — his book, the one in which 100 strangers compete for a billion dollars while the Antarctic ice grows dangerously thin beneath them.
The Most Dangerous Games hits shelves today at $35 in hardcover, and it shows up carrying a narrative about its own flop. Semafor, in a report relayed by The Hollywood Reporter, described the thriller as “on track to be a historic bomb.”
Those in the know are now contesting that characterization.
The number everybody’s arguing about
What worried Semafor was that presales “numbering in the four digits” represented a “tiny fraction of what th epublisher will need to justify Patterson’s and YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson’s hefty fees.”
That interpretation drew a rebuttal from a senior-level source familiar with the figures, who said presales are “beyond four digits” and “tracking well for a debut novel.” A separate publishing source pointed out that single-digit thousands in presales is the norm for titles like this one.
Which means one identical number can read as a disaster or as an unremarkable Tuesday, depending entirely on who is doing the describing. Welcome to publishing.
The strategy isn’t about pre-orders anyway
This next detail recasts the entire debate. Driving pre-orders reportedly was never the specific target of the book’s marketing plan, on the theory that Donaldson’s younger fan base tends to buy after a release rather than reserving copies weeks ahead of time.
That logic holds up. Placing hardcover pre-orders is not typical teenage behavior.
Beyond that, YouTube’s biggest promotional apparatus belongs to Donaldson, and it is aimed squarely at this release. A video called “Read My Book, You Could Win $1,000,000” has already gone up, which ought to move some additional units. The end-of-year sales season also hasn’t happened yet.
What HarperCollins is actually risking
Presales aren’t where the true exposure lies. The advance is.
Whatever HarperCollins paid Donaldson and co-author James Patterson purely to lock down publishing rights and take delivery of the manuscript could leave the publisher owing a substantial sum no matter what the sales look like. The amount has never been disclosed. Any discussion of it is guesswork.
Patterson, it’s worth remembering, is the Alex Cross guy. His services are not inexpensive.
The book itself sounds like Battle Royale (official site) meets Squid Game
Built as a fictionalized take on a massive MrBeast survival game, the novel comes with a blurb that holds nothing back.
“A thousand strangers receive the invitation,” it reads. “One hundred make the cut. The Games begin in Antarctica, where one wrong step on the ice kills you, and they never let up: Shark water off a remote Chilean island, desert heat that cooks you where you stand, storm-battered peaks, and caves so black you cannot find your own hand. No rescue. No second chances. A billion dollars to whoever is still standing.”
From there, the situation deteriorates for everyone in it.
“Then the terrain stops being the thing that can kill you, and the other players start. Alliances turn into ambushes. Trust becomes the sharpest weapon. And somewhere above it all, a hidden voice is watching every move, testing, deciding who deserves to survive.”
An unseen voice tracking every move and ruling on who is worthy of survival. Turns out Donaldson has been writing memoir all along.