Could You Handle an Overnight Best-seller? Epicenter Press’ Kent Sturgis talks about how his small press tackled the instant, overwhelming demand for the only Sarah Palin biography.
September 2008 By Peter Beisser
Biographies of political hopefuls typically see a significant bump in demand during presidential election years. But a sudden spike in orders wasn’t something Publisher Kent Sturgis expected for Epicenter Press’ 2008 biography of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Kaylene Johnson’s “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down”—the one and only biography of the 44-year-old politician in print at the time. That all changed Friday, Aug. 29, when Sen. John McCain announced that Palin would be the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Almost immediately, Sturgis and his small publishing house, which consists of himself and three part-time employees, mobilized to meet the sudden, overwhelming demand for the title. Within a week, the company had 86,000 copies of the book in print.
Just a week after Sen. McCain’s selection, Epicenter Press announced a partnership with Chicago-based Tyndale House Publishers, who began shipping 250,000 copies of a trade paperback edition of “Sarah” yesterday. Earlier in the week, Zondervan announced that it would release a biography of Gov. Palin Oct. 10 entitled, “Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader,” by Joe Hilley.
Sturgis spoke with Book Business Extra about the challenges of having a regional title, with an initial run of 10,000 copies, become a national best-seller within a matter of days.
Book Business Extra: What were the first steps that you took once you realized there would be a significant increase in demand for “Sarah”? What was your initial reaction?
Kent Sturgis: It was a shock. The phone starting ringing immediately. Then the calls back and forth … began between ourselves and our distributor, Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. They work with Ingram Publisher Services (IPS). Pretty quickly, we had a conference call with Graphic Arts, IPS and Lightning Source, [an Ingram content company]. We decided right away that we needed to release a trade paperback. It was pretty easy to put together. This was initially a regional book. With a little tweaking, it held up [for a national audience].
In a couple of days, we did 40,000—30,000 and then 10,000—digitally through Lightning Source. They were preparing them by Friday evening, and they were printing them all over the weekend. They shipped 34,000 on Tuesday. The orders continued to come in during the week. We [then] did … another … 6,000 and [then] 5,000. Yesterday, we just ordered our first offset supply. When those copies come in, we’ll have a total of 86,000 [in the first week].
Just a week after Sen. McCain’s selection, Epicenter Press announced a partnership with Chicago-based Tyndale House Publishers, who began shipping 250,000 copies of a trade paperback edition of “Sarah” yesterday. Earlier in the week, Zondervan announced that it would release a biography of Gov. Palin Oct. 10 entitled, “Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader,” by Joe Hilley.
Sturgis spoke with Book Business Extra about the challenges of having a regional title, with an initial run of 10,000 copies, become a national best-seller within a matter of days.
Book Business Extra: What were the first steps that you took once you realized there would be a significant increase in demand for “Sarah”? What was your initial reaction?
Kent Sturgis: It was a shock. The phone starting ringing immediately. Then the calls back and forth … began between ourselves and our distributor, Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. They work with Ingram Publisher Services (IPS). Pretty quickly, we had a conference call with Graphic Arts, IPS and Lightning Source, [an Ingram content company]. We decided right away that we needed to release a trade paperback. It was pretty easy to put together. This was initially a regional book. With a little tweaking, it held up [for a national audience].
In a couple of days, we did 40,000—30,000 and then 10,000—digitally through Lightning Source. They were preparing them by Friday evening, and they were printing them all over the weekend. They shipped 34,000 on Tuesday. The orders continued to come in during the week. We [then] did … another … 6,000 and [then] 5,000. Yesterday, we just ordered our first offset supply. When those copies come in, we’ll have a total of 86,000 [in the first week].
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