This bit comes from Media Bistro:
| Quote: |
| When the Library of America‘s publicist informed me that last year’s collection of four classic Philip K. Dick novels was their fastest-selling title ever, I was pleasantly surprised, but I wanted some proof. LOA marketing manager Brian McCarthy was happy to oblige, informing me that the Library had shipped 23,750 copies of Four Novels of the 1960s—the better part of two complete print runs—and that returns were a "staggeringly low" 5 percent. By way of comparison, the Library’s last major foray into science fiction and fantasy, the H.P. Lovecraft Tales published in 2005, sold 11,860 copies (with a similar return rate) in its first year (with gross sales-to-date now standing at 26,000-plus.) |
This is better than other more traditional LoA "heavy-hitters" such as the first collection of Jack Kerouac novels (shipped just under 15,000 copies in its first year, with a return rate of 10 percent), two-volume collection of Edmund Wilson’s critical writings (9250 and 12%) and the American Poetry: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries anthology (4200 and 8%).
And the trend should continue with the second PKD volume (Five Novels of the 1960s and 70s which includes Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Now Wait for Last Year, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly). The book is not due out until July 31 and pre-orders already exceed 10,000.
It’s a good time to be a Dickhead!
