It's only been one week since the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, but all five books that were awarded have already started to see the effects in sales.
Fiction winner The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson saw a 500% increase according to outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan, going from 413 copies sold the week leading up to the announcement, and 2,477 copies afterward. To date, the book has sold 40,000 copies in hardcover and paperback.
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall (History) sold 353 copies, up from 40 before the announcement. The book has sold 6,214 copies in hardcover--a paperback edition from Random House is set for August 2013.
Tom Reiss's The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, the Biography winner, shot up to 501 copies from 135, a 271% increase. Like Embers, Reiss's book is only available in hardcover; a paperback will publish in June from Crown.
Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds (Poetry) saw the biggest sales percentge increase, going from 51 copies to 492 copies, a 865% increase. The book is available in both hardcover and paperback, and has sold nearly 5,000 copies to date combined.
General Nonfiction winner Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King, the winner with the lowest sales, had a 600% spike in the paperback edition, which was just published from Harper in February 2013. Between the two formats, the book has sold over 3,300 copies, 251 of which came after the Pulitzer announcement.
