Death Bounce Tracker: Julia Child on Top
AUGUST 24, 2009 TAGS:
When David Foster Wallace died in September of 2008, his 1000-page masterpiece, Infinite Jest, a disjointed, heavily-footnoted beast of a novel jumped to the top ten books sold on Amazon.com. Sure, it was unlikely that such a difficult book would move so quickly out of Amazon’s warehouses. But a Death Bounce is a powerful phenomenon.
Michael Schaffer, in his piece, "Death as a Career Move," wrote:
Michael Jackson’s death, and the subsequent explosion of sales, which topped $100 million according to some estimates, affirms Akre’s hypothesis.
But what to make of Julia Child’s death bounce? Her seminal treatise, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, written for the droves of “serventless American chefs,” has seen a spike in sales as high as Stanley Tucci’s hairline. The New York Times reports that Child’s collection of butter-laden recipes “sold 22,000 copies in the most recent week tracked, according to Nielsen BookScan, which follows book sales.” The cookbook is also Amazon.com's best selling book this week.
This is not a Death Bounce, per se. Child died five years ago, and her death did not cause a swell in sales. Rather, Nora Ephron’s soufflé-pic, Julie & Julia, has given renewed puff to Child’s pastries.
Perhaps a new word should be used, a retrospective bounce. Or better yet, a biopic bounce.
This is familiar territory. Sales of Ray Charles’ music soared after 2004’s Jamie Foxx vehicle, Ray. And copies of In Cold Blood rose 28 percent after the Truman Capote biopic, Capote, hit theatres in 2005.
Another trend among these biopics: the actor playing the title role won an Academy Award. Looks like Meryl Streep should be clearing off room on her mantle.
Michael Schaffer, in his piece, "Death as a Career Move," wrote:Not all death bounces, though, are created equal. Where stores burned through copies of Wallace’s books following his unexpected death last month, better-known figures like William F. Buckley, Jr. generated considerably smaller posthumous sales bursts. “Sometimes, the element of surprise is a good thing,” says Alexis Akre, the longtime book buyer for Olsson’s, the now defunct Washington-area bookstore chain. “The shocking, sad death got more of a bounce than [that of], say, Norman Mailer, which we knew was coming.”
Michael Jackson’s death, and the subsequent explosion of sales, which topped $100 million according to some estimates, affirms Akre’s hypothesis.
But what to make of Julia Child’s death bounce? Her seminal treatise, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, written for the droves of “serventless American chefs,” has seen a spike in sales as high as Stanley Tucci’s hairline. The New York Times reports that Child’s collection of butter-laden recipes “sold 22,000 copies in the most recent week tracked, according to Nielsen BookScan, which follows book sales.” The cookbook is also Amazon.com's best selling book this week.
This is not a Death Bounce, per se. Child died five years ago, and her death did not cause a swell in sales. Rather, Nora Ephron’s soufflé-pic, Julie & Julia, has given renewed puff to Child’s pastries.
Perhaps a new word should be used, a retrospective bounce. Or better yet, a biopic bounce.
This is familiar territory. Sales of Ray Charles’ music soared after 2004’s Jamie Foxx vehicle, Ray. And copies of In Cold Blood rose 28 percent after the Truman Capote biopic, Capote, hit theatres in 2005.
Another trend among these biopics: the actor playing the title role won an Academy Award. Looks like Meryl Streep should be clearing off room on her mantle.
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