After a same-titled TV miniseries adaptation of Lawrence Hill’s award-winning novel The Book of Negroes premiered in Canada in January, the backlist book has shot up the charts. Now the effect is taking hold in the States, with the six-par series set to premiere on U.S. television February 16.
According to Leo MacDonald, senior v-p of sales and marketing at HarperCollins Canada, The Book of Negroes, which was originally released in 2007, has been a consistent seller. The miniseries, though, has given new life to the title. Sales of the book, MacDonald said, shot up by 117% in Canada, after the miniseries premiered.
The effect is taking hold in the U.S., as well. The book, about a West African girl sold into slavery in America, is showing gains for its U.S. publisher, W.W. Norton, which said that sales have jumped “ten-fold" in the past few weeks.
CBC TV estimated that 1.7 million Canadians tuned in to watch the premiere of the miniseries. And, since then, the book has risen to the #1 spot on the Canadian fiction bestseller list, remaining there for the past three weeks. Now publishers are prepping for the miniseries—which stars Aunjanue Ellis, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Louis Gossett Jr.—to hit the U.S.; the show is set to start airing on BET next week.
A Canadian tie-in edition, published by HarperCollins Canada in December, is also selling well, having moved nearly 40,000 copies in Canada. “It just keeps going,” explained MacDonald. “There’s no one even close to [Hill] on the Canadian bestseller list.” MacDonald now estimates that the book’s overall Canadian sales are approaching 800,000 copies across all formats.
The miniseries has affected more than just sales in the U.S., too. When Norton originally released the book in the States, it did so under the title Someone Knows My Name.
The switch, Norton explained, came after booksellers expressed concern that some readers might take offense to the word “negro.” (This, despite the fact that Hill named the novel after a historical document from the Revolutionary War.) Norton's new title was intended to echo James Baldwin’s breakthrough book, Nobody Knows My Name.
To avoid missing out on the boost HC Canada has seen from the miniseries, Norton has issued its own tie-in edition, which of course features the book's original title. The move, explained Norton's executive director of publicity, Louise Brockett, is thanks to the "awareness and excitement surrounding the miniseries."
