(no subject)
They almost had me thinking there were possible leads on the answer... anyhow, I present to you an article from today's NYTimes, "A Mystery: When Will 'Da Vinci' Go Into Paperback?"
Until now, anyone who had predicted that "The Da Vinci Code" was on the verge of losing momentum had been proven wrong, as the book has remained near the top of nearly every national best-seller list for more than two years.
Nevertheless, "The Da Vinci Code" now appears to be losing momentum.
The novel, by Dan Brown, has fallen to its lowest level ever on the New York Times best-seller list. On Sunday, June 5, "The Da Vinci Code" will be ranked at No. 6 on the Times's hardcover fiction list, the first time since the novel's publication in March 2003 that it has fallen out of the top five. The June 5 list reflects sales for the week ended May 22. Doubleday, the publisher, estimates that the book has recently been selling 25,000 to 30,000 copies a week.
At that level, "The Da Vinci Code" is not headed for the remainder piles anytime soon. But the book's sales have fallen from an estimated 250,000 copies during the week before Christmas. If sales do not increase for Father's Day, traditionally the strongest sales period of the summer, Doubleday may begin to firm up plans for a paperback edition of the book in the United States.
Stephen Rubin, the publisher of Doubleday, a division of Random House, said in an interview on Friday that he believed "The Da Vinci Code" had fallen down the list not because of lagging sales but because of the strength of several recent books, including new novels by James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks and Michael Connelly.
"If anything, there has been a slight increase recently" thanks to publicity about tours of sites in Europe that are mentioned in the book, he said. The book has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon and tour companies have reported heavy bookings this summer of churches and museums in France and Britain from people who have been captivated by the novel's plot.
Paperback versions of popular novels typically appear about a year or so after the hardcover goes on sale. But with more than 10 million copies of the "The Da Vinci Code" having been sold in hardcover in the United States in a little over two years, Doubleday has been in no hurry to schedule release of a cheaper alternative.
One date looms large in that calculation, however. A movie based on the book, to be directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who works to unravel the clues that lead to the mystery, is scheduled to be released on May 19, 2006.
A teaser trailer for the film, which is set to begin production next month in Europe, was released on the Internet earlier this month at www.thedavincicode-movie.com, and posters for the film are already in some theaters. That by itself could be enough to perk up interest in the book among moviegoers who have yet to read it.
"We're not scheduling a paperback until we feel sales have declined enough in the hardcover to justify a paperback," Mr. Rubin said. "Ask me again in August."
Until now, anyone who had predicted that "The Da Vinci Code" was on the verge of losing momentum had been proven wrong, as the book has remained near the top of nearly every national best-seller list for more than two years.
Nevertheless, "The Da Vinci Code" now appears to be losing momentum.
The novel, by Dan Brown, has fallen to its lowest level ever on the New York Times best-seller list. On Sunday, June 5, "The Da Vinci Code" will be ranked at No. 6 on the Times's hardcover fiction list, the first time since the novel's publication in March 2003 that it has fallen out of the top five. The June 5 list reflects sales for the week ended May 22. Doubleday, the publisher, estimates that the book has recently been selling 25,000 to 30,000 copies a week.
At that level, "The Da Vinci Code" is not headed for the remainder piles anytime soon. But the book's sales have fallen from an estimated 250,000 copies during the week before Christmas. If sales do not increase for Father's Day, traditionally the strongest sales period of the summer, Doubleday may begin to firm up plans for a paperback edition of the book in the United States.
Stephen Rubin, the publisher of Doubleday, a division of Random House, said in an interview on Friday that he believed "The Da Vinci Code" had fallen down the list not because of lagging sales but because of the strength of several recent books, including new novels by James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks and Michael Connelly.
"If anything, there has been a slight increase recently" thanks to publicity about tours of sites in Europe that are mentioned in the book, he said. The book has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon and tour companies have reported heavy bookings this summer of churches and museums in France and Britain from people who have been captivated by the novel's plot.
Paperback versions of popular novels typically appear about a year or so after the hardcover goes on sale. But with more than 10 million copies of the "The Da Vinci Code" having been sold in hardcover in the United States in a little over two years, Doubleday has been in no hurry to schedule release of a cheaper alternative.
One date looms large in that calculation, however. A movie based on the book, to be directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who works to unravel the clues that lead to the mystery, is scheduled to be released on May 19, 2006.
A teaser trailer for the film, which is set to begin production next month in Europe, was released on the Internet earlier this month at www.thedavincicode-movie.com, and posters for the film are already in some theaters. That by itself could be enough to perk up interest in the book among moviegoers who have yet to read it.
"We're not scheduling a paperback until we feel sales have declined enough in the hardcover to justify a paperback," Mr. Rubin said. "Ask me again in August."