A letter to booksellers about the extraordinary success of The Luminaries
Dear friends,
Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize success is the biggest thing that has happened for VUP. We are overjoyed for her, and thrilled by the support she and we have received from the New Zealand book trade, and by the gusto with which NZ readers are now embracing The Luminaries.
It is hard to be prepared for an extraordinary event like this, especially when one of the charming features of the Man Booker Prize is that the judges make their decision on the day and the publisher gets no warning at all. We have been as surprised as everyone else by just how fast this is taking off, and we are doing our very best to resupply everyone as quickly as possible.
The next reprint of 10,000 copies is being airfreighted from Australia and is due at Random House NZ on 29 October. As many of you know, it is oversubscribed, and I am afraid we will have to part-fulfil many of your orders.
The next reprint of 20,000 is already underway. We don’t have a firm date yet, but we are optimistic that the further wait will not be much longer than a week.
We are very grateful for your support – as we are for the support of Random House NZ, Allen & Unwin Australia, Book Systems International and Archetype Book Agents – and we will keep you updated as soon as we have further news.
Happy days!
Fergus Barrowman
Publisher VUP
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