Sourcebooks Scores with Obama Calendar
by Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 11/17/2008 12:31:00 PM
Sourcebooks took a big risk by releasing the 2009 Barack Obama Wall Calendar: Words of Hope and Inspiration earlier this season, when the presidential election seemed to be a dead heat. The Naperville, Ill.’s gamble is now paying off. The Obama calendar has shipped 100,000 units since its August release, with 6,300 sold the week ending Nov. 9 -- the week Obama was elected president. Not only is the Sourcebooks Obama calendar currently ranked as the #1 bestselling calendar on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble, but specialty Internet retailer Calendar Club recently ordered 50,000 units to sell on its site, calendars.com.
Malpaprop’s in Asheville, N. C., the formerly red state that turned blue Nov. 4, ordered 15 Obama wall calendars – but not until the day after the election. “We’ve sold a lot of Obama bumper stickers and paper dolls, besides all the books,” general manager Linda Barrett Knopp noted, “But I waited until after the election to buy the calendar; otherwise, it would have been too depressing if things hadn’t turned out well.”
Book Beat, an independent bookstore in suburban Detroit, ordered 60 calendars. “There’s been a demand from our customers for Obama books, and then there were requests from them for calendars as well. One customer’s already purchased 10 calendars,” said bookseller Courtney Gregory.
The 2009 Barack Obama Wall Calendar is not Sourcebooks’s first venture into presidential calendars: the publisher produced in 2007 and again in 2008 the George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown Wall Calendar, which, together, shipped a total of 260,000 units.
