IV, buzz and book sales

[Mark Kohut]

Thanks for the shout-out but " wonderful" I ain't, as most plisters and disappointed others will tell you. 

Yes, a movie of a book sells more copies of a book. always. But the amount can vary tremendously, no surprise. 

That those sales and readings can lead to more sales by
Discoverers of older works is usually a minuscule number. Unless there is a series,
Then the number is usually noticeable.

I personally know one new reader of Pynchon, started with Bleeding Edge, who then went to
Vineland, now Inherent Vice, after I mentioned the upcoming movie, who has now gotten Lot 49. 

I would love to know Penguin's sales. Small Upticks in sales start a few months out around press for the movie; first real kick upward is usually the trailer. THEN, with TV ads if there are any. The major book chains in the US would try to land their major movie reorders---small local bump-ups by demand during the run-up---just before scheduled TV ads for big movie releases. 


I would love to have sales numbers from 

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 30, 2014, at 4:38 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hey P-listers,
> 
>    How many of you folks spend time looking at those Amazon book sales numbers? Not that it's clear how that number was arrived at (some algorithm) but we get the gist: small number big sales, big number low sales. It's the kind of thing authors look at, but so do some scholars. Like John Thompson in his book Merchants of Culture (which was recommended to me by our own wonderful Mark Kohut). In that excellent work Thompson shows how an Oprah mention can turn into a massive change in book sales (as was the case for Night by Elie Wiesel) but so can a movie adaptation. Thompson focuses on Ian McEwan's book Atonement and how its sales spiked after the movie release.
> 
>    It seems reasonable to ask how much the release of IV will change its Amazon book number. Additionally, if buzz builds and the movie is nominated for some award (see James English "The Economy of Prestige" on prizes and awards) this should also have some effect on book sales. Won't this bring TP's writing to the attention of many new readers? Will we see his other book numbers tic upward? These questions are pertintent to the study of Pynchon's work in that it deals with the growth of the reading community composed of TP's readers and thus eventually the position and value of his work in society. 
> 
>    I think it would prove interesting to see how many people that view the film 1) were previously aware of the author, 2) had read the book, 3) or planned to read the book or others by the author. This could be done with a short, well designed survey as people leave the cinema. Sadly, here in the Basque country that is pretty much impossible for me to do. Anybody in an anglophone urban area up for the task? Hey New Yorkers, any takers? How about the UK crew? 
> 
>   Harold Bloom (the once great Critic before the arrival of the Usurper from Durham) has made his claim for the Bard as the inventor of humanity. I would put forth that TP is one of a chorus of writers who continue to reinvent and/or challenge ideas we have about ourselves, and as such this writhing new world of paranoias and plots (for that is surely the sign of our times) corresponds more to TP's fiction than the Weltanschauung behind the aesthetic ideals of a certain critic, tempered though he be of late.
> 
> On a hill
> mc Otis
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