Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingHow to Sell
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreBobby Clark is just sixteen when he drops out of school to follow his big brother, Jim, into the jewelry business. Bobby idolizes Jim and is in awe of Jim’s girlfriend, Lisa, the best saleswoman at the Fort Worth Deluxe Diamond Exchange.
What follows is the story of a young man’s education in two of the oldest human passions: love and money. Through a dark, sharp lens, Clancy Martin captures the luxury business in all its exquisite vulgarity and outrageous fraud, finding in the diamond-and-watch trade a metaphor for the American soul at work.
Clancy Martin worked for more than a decade in the fine jewelry business. A professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas, he is known for his translations of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. He is currently at work on a new translation of Nietzsche's Ecce Hommo and a book-length essay for FSG on marriage and deceit. His first appearance in McSweeney’s was nominated for a 2008 National Magazine Award.
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
Reviews
“A darkly bewitching first novel.”
“Martin has a poetic sensibility...He gives a mesmerizing appeal to the setting of an alexandrite necklace and the delicate artistry involved in shaping a diamond.”
“How to Sell, Clancy Martin’s sly debut novel, is a lesson in double dealing—in business and in romance…This is one of those books that makes you slap your forehead and marvel at the intricate lies that ensnare the unwary, even as you check to make sure your wallet and your wits are right where you left them.”
“How to Sell is outrageous, theatrical and slicker than oil…a gem of a story.”
“Martin writes with no-nonsense punch, detailing the schemes—fake certificates, ‘antiques’—shady jewelers have been running for centuries…By the time you’re hooked on the book’s insidious plot twists…you’re blissfully unaware you’re downing a metaphor: No commission can buy you a soul.”
“It’s a lean and mean book, perfect for those who distrust all this recent talk about change. The kind of novel—cool and dark—that goes with you to the beach and then keeps you thinking at night.”
“A noirish blast of a novel.”
“How to Sell is, with memorably dark comedy, a virtual handbook on fraud…is a compelling setting for Martin’s propulsive storytelling. His narration feels cinematic, the sets and scenery popping off the page.”
“Sex, of course, may sell, but Martin's wicked take on money, the jewelry business and American passions could prove to have multiple pleasures.”
“A crackling debut...a bravura catalog of the scams and rackets that make up the luxury jewelry trade...Like a James Ellroy novel for people who read Spinoza's Ethics.”
“A timely meditation on greed and the American Dream.”
“Sexy, funny and devastating…like watching one man's American dream turn into a soul-sucking nightmare.”
“The feeling you get from the moment you open Clancy Martin’s superb novel is one of inevitability. This is the inevitability of truth-telling, of tragedy, of the setup to a good joke, and, very possibly, the inevitability of the classic.”
“Dirty, greatly original, and very hard to stop reading.”
“A tender yet hardboiled coming-of-age story, a vivid, sometimes philosophical portrait of yearning and greed, of human love and human spoilage—all of it mirrored in stripped-down, addictive prose. Clancy Martin has written a scary, funny blaze of a book.”
“A bleak, funny, unforgiving novel...about how we buy and sell everything—merchandise, drugs, sex, trust, power, peace of mind, religion, friendship, and each other...A genuinely fresh, disconcerting voice.”
Expand reviews