Winning the Pulitzer Prize almost always offers more than just literary glory. It can also have a very strong effect on a book's bottom line. Three of the 2001 winners are proof. The fiction winner, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, had about 50,000 copies in print before winning the coveted award. Reviews were stellar, including a starred and boxed PW review. Random House went back to press for an additional 50,000 after the announcement of the prize and the book is now right below PW's top 15. Chabon has already done lots of media; still to come is a segment on CBS Sunday Morning.
The winner of the history prize, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis, landed on our nonfiction list this week in the #10 spot. Publisher Knopf had "a devil of a time locating the author on April 16 to tell him the good news," according to publicity director Nicholas Latimer. Ellis was out jogging—a friend familiar with his route was finally able to track him down to give him the news. By the time Ellis actually spoke with his editor, Knopf had already increased the 10th printing from 30,000 to 40,000 copies, bringing the total in print to more than 200,000. The first printing was 50,000, and great reviews, a national drive-time radio tour and the author as a guest expert on last fall's four-part Founding Fathers series on the History Channel all drove sales. Knopf has postponed the Vintage paper edition, which had been scheduled to come out this fall.
David Auburn's Proof won the drama award; Faber & Faber published the play about three months ago. It went back to press twice in the first 10 days after the Pulitzer was announced and will soon have about 20,000 copies in print—a figure, notes the publisher, that is about four or five times what a play would normally have in print after three months. This is Faber's second Pulitzer Prize—winning play. The 1999 winner, Wit by Margaret Edson, has sold almost 60,000 copies in the past two years, a "phenomenal amount for a play," according to the publisher.
With reporting by Dick Donahue.
