So the bookselling world rejoices in the extremely well-deserved Booker win of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. A marvellous and thoroughly absorbing read (as opposed to "absorbent" - Dan Brown's entire oeuvre springs to mind). And once again, a situation arises that any bookseller out there will be wearily familiar with. What, I ask the rest of you, would most people do on hearing that a book has been given a prize? Why, they may wish to buy it, or if not actually buy it, to pick it up and leaf through a few pages. So what do the publishers do, with distressing and lemming-like regularity, in the face of this sudden burst of publicity and interest? They re-issue the book with the words "Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize" on the front cover. And while the book is being thus reissued, it is usually impossible to get copies. Which means that a good percentage of people who might otherwise have bought the book in a frenzy of literary good will, unable to get a copy right now this minute, may change their minds and not buy it at all. Seriously, has no publisher ever thought that it might be a good idea (and a huge financial saving) simply to print rolls of stickers saying "Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize" and send them out to bookshops/distributors etc? I can't possibly be the only person who's had this idea...
9 comments:
That's so interesting and thank you for shedding light on exactly why I can't get a copy of Wolf Hall right now. Anyone who is trying to order the book right now obviously knows that it just won. Idiots, I say. xx
I quite liked her Beyond Black. I may try this one, then. But you're right - by the time it gets back in the shops, it'll probably have slipped my mind.
I'm guessing the sticker thing would be impeded by the fact that no publisher would want to pay for another publisher's stickers, and they can't be sure in advance.
I'm also thinking - surely they don't shred the copies that were already in the shops. So the whole sold-out thing may just be because of its sudden popularity.
So Lovely - Availability also complicated by the fact that no retailer, esp in a recession, wants to stock 15 copies of everything, because they're going to get stuck with the ones that didn't win...
Mwa - This is very much like "A Place Of Greater Safety" - HUGE, vastly detailed and easy to lose the plot of if you put it down. I also loved "Beyond Black" - and my favourite of hers is "Eight Months on Ghazzah street". You're right about the sticker thing - but even if it's just the one publisher, it's a worthwhile expense - also I bet far quicker than getting the jackets reprinted and replaced (which is what happened here) - itself still a better option than pulping!
Quite. And the reissued jacket is seldom a patch on the original either.
Personally I'm a bit of a jacket snob and won't buy any book if it doesn't have some decent artwork on it (unless it's some title I literally can't live without).
Someone somewhere out there has the task of 'crapifying covers'
Hi Laura - yes the worst possible offender so far has to be "Carter Beats The Devil", one of my all-time favourite books, which started out with an off-puttingly Boys' Own cover, and then got an even worse one (red and white psychedelia - very unsuitable for a book set in the 1920s!!!). Frankly I can't remember what made me read it in the first place, although I'm glad I did.
We just ordered copies from Amazon at my shop - %55 discount was way better than anything the publisher would have offered for next day delivery...no probelems with availability there.
I loved Wolf Hall - it is a classic. A historical novel written in the most immediate prose.
MC - Yes, the dread Amazon often do bigger discounts, but as with Dan Brown we were worried about returnability... although to be honest we were certain Hilary Mantel was going to win anyway (hurrah). I agree - brilliant book, weirdly made me go back and re-read Dorothy Dunnett..
I had no idea this was common practice - from now on I'll just put a reminder on Outlook to look for the book a month hence....
Any time you want to start a business, let me know and I will invest....stickers for EVERYTHING....
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