Jan 1, 2019 marked the Netflix release of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.” The decluttering guru captured the attention of North Americans in the “new year, new you” spirit and tidily tapped into the spring cleaning rituals of Chinese Lunar New Year and, of course, the Japanese ritual osoji (pronouned oh-soh-jee), which translatees into “big cleaning.”

What's remarkable about the Netflix series is the spark of joy on booksellers' faces as Marie Kondo books saw a sales lift. Now I only have anecdotal evidence but do check BookNet Canada and Nielsen sales. What I can see is the Google Search Terms for Marie Kondo and Spark Joy, the illustrated edition, which published in 2016.

What you can see in the search trends data is that about 2 weeks after the release, the search traffic for the Netflix series starts to wan. The series is 8 episodes so I assume this is the max attention span given a mix of binge-watching and word-of-mouth. It looks like there's a 2-week window to tap into the collective minds and watercooler chatter. Searches for the book Spark Joy continue to climb until Jan 25 and then dwindle along with searches for the series. 

So, is Netflix the next Oprah? 

Netflix released “Dirty John” on February 14, 2019, and 4 days after this is what you see in the search trends (screenshot below). There's a definite lift in searches for “real dirty john” and “true story of dirty john”, suggesting an opportunity to push awareness of the Dirty John book.

Dirty John and Other True Stories of Outlaws and Outsiders is a collection of newspaper stories by award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard—including “Dirty John,” the basis for the hit podcast and the Netflix series starring Connie Britton and Eric Bana. 

• The Dirty John book was published by Simon & Schuster Nov 13, 2018.
• “Dirty John” the true crime podcast based on the life of John Meehan, a con artist and sociopath, launched Oct 2, 2017. The podcast is hosted by Christopher Goffard and was created by Wondery and the Los Angeles Times.

Now Dirty John is no comparison to Spark Joy. In the case of Marie Kondo, she's been travelling the world, talking up the KonMari method, and building a cleaning army. There are also spin-offs for pro-clutter books and anti-KonMari sentiment. But her books have sold millions and the Netflix series spawned millions more to clean out their closets. They may have become aware of the KonMari Method on television, but it was probably a nice “told-you-so” moment for the original fans of her books.

Dirty John the podcast had over 10 million downloads within six weeks of release in Oct 2017, @realdirtyjohn on Twitter has 4,121 followers, and the Netflix series is generating all sorts of publicity. But I think it pales in comparison to the appetite people have for Marie Kondo, who continues to build her empire (and has 144K followers @mariekondo ). 

So, books…I'd monitor what's coming on Netflix and build a marketing plan for related search queries and any relevant book titles. On the surface it seems like house & home and true crime are the Netflix sweet spots. Will that translate to book sales? I suppose it depends, but if there's an opportunity to pull forward some backlist titles, why not clean and cry?

Ideas:

• Pitch your titles to journalists and influencers as part of round-up lists
• Put house & home and true crime titles on your home page
• Work these titles into your social media posts more often
• Facebook Live of IGTV some tidying up of your published titles in each category
• Create your own checklists or booklists