Pulitzer Prize: huge sales neither required nor guaranteed
It鈥檚 the gold standard, the highest honor, the single most important mark of excellence and prestige.
In the publishing world, there is no prize more coveted than the Pulitzer, a distinction that sets the cream of the book crop apart from the rest.
And with that distinction comes the so-called 鈥淧ulitzer bump,鈥� a sharp increase in book sales that award winners and their publishers eagerly await.
At least, according to media reports.
calls it a 鈥渨indfall.鈥� The calls it a 鈥渟ure way鈥� of increasing sales. And the calls it a 鈥渂ig bump in sales.鈥�
Two weeks after the 2013 Pulitzers were announced, all five winning books have, in fact, seen an increase in sales.
The numbers, however, are woefully underwhelming.
鈥淓mbers of War,鈥� by Fredrik Logevall, saw 2013 sales increase from 40 (yes, you read that right) copies before the announcement to 353 after it, according to Nielsen BookScan and .
Sales of Tom Reiss鈥檚 鈥淭he Black Count,鈥� inched up from 135 to 501 copies.
Sharon Old鈥檚 鈥淪tag鈥檚 Leap鈥� saw sales increase from 51 copies to 492.
And Fiction winner 鈥淭he Orphan Master鈥檚 Son,鈥� by Adam Johnson, saw sales increase from 413 copies to 2,477 after the award announcement.
Sales of 353, 492, 501? We鈥檇 hardly call that a windfall.
The most surprising case of all is nonfiction winner Gilbert King, whose book, 鈥�,鈥� had been remaindered before his Pulitzer win.
That鈥檚 right, publisher HarperCollins had started liquidating the book 鈥� poised to become a Pulitzer-winner 鈥� at reduced price, due to extremely low sales.聽
This, in an industry where soft porn (鈥淔ifty Shades鈥�) and Snooki (鈥淪hore Thing鈥�) are runaway bestsellers.
It鈥檚 a peculiar phenomenon, that such highly acclaimed works (all of which had been well-reviewed in the press) are so poorly rewarded in the marketplace. But we can鈥檛 say we鈥檙e surprised. After all, film often suffers the same fate 鈥� fine work sometimes means low interest and sales.
Maybe the good news is that strong sales are not required to win a Pulitzer. And fortunately there are many authors willing to ignore the sales tickers and trends to continue to produce high-quality literature that earns accolades.聽
We only hope it earns readers and sales, too.
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.
