Big Fish Film Boosts First Edition at Branch's Bookstore
By Bob Summer, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 1/9/2004
Alabama native Daniel Wallace is the man of the hour in Chapel Hill, N.C. Although the movie adapted from his 1988 novel Big Fish (Penguin, $10.95), opened in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto in early December (promptly garnering four Golden Globe nominations, including best picture), it makes its debut in his adopted hometown only tomorrow. Wallace has been lionized in the local press over the past month and will be honored at a party at Branch's Chapel Hill Bookshop after tonight's premier.
The hardcover first edition published by Algonquin has led Branch's fiction bestseller list, despite the availability of a movie tie-in paperback published by Penguin. The store bought up the remainder of Big Fish's original 13,000-copy $17.95 hardcover printing--which the store is selling for $35 a piece.
"Daniel has been a favorite customer of ours ever since we opened just over a year ago," Kate Branch, owner of the 4,000-sq.-ft. store, told PW Daily. "He lives nearby, and we had him in for a signing last spring for The Watermelon King (Houghton Mifflin, $23), his third novel. But we wanted to so something special for him when the movie opened here. He was agreeable, of course, and suggested Algonquin as a co-host."
Branch thinks that her store, and perhaps some in Alabama, where the autobiographical novel is set and the movie was filmed, are the only places with first editions for sale. Most copies Algonquin has warehoused are from a 3,000-copy second printing.
Algonquin marketing director Craig Popelars said the Tim Burton-directed movie has resulted in a "significant" increase in demand for the second edition hardcover.
Like Branch, Popelars and some of his colleagues have seen the movie. He commented that it was " very gratifying to see the end result of a book we took a lot of pleasure in publishing."
Kathy Pories, Wallace's editor for Big Fish, attended the movie's New York premiere as the author's guest. "Yes, I walked on the red carpet," she said, adding, "Although a book and the movie made from it are never the same and there are elements of the movie that aren't in the novel, the movie is nevertheless incredibly faithful to the book in capturing the essentials of its father-son relationship and the whole curve of the father's grandiose storytelling process. But what's been so amazing to me is to follow a book all the way through from its incoming manuscript to its ultimate Hollywood realization."
Though Wallace had only minimal involvement in adapting the script, he does appear briefly in the film as an economics professor.
