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A shot in the backlist

21.02.08 Anna Richardson

Hollywood is gearing up to hand out its most coveted accolades this Sunday (24th February), when the Academy Awards are announced at another star-studded ceremony. However, it is not only the actors and film crews that wait with baited breath—publishers are also keeping their fingers firmly crossed, as this year’s list of nominees again contains several literary adaptations.

“No Country for Old Men”, “There Will be Blood”, "The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly”, “Atonement” and foreign-language film “Beaufort” are all based on books, and an Oscar crown is likely to boost sales of the original titles, especially if a tie-in edition is available.

Adaptations generally offer publishers a chance to piggyback on film promotions, and publishing a tie-in cover can be lucrative. “Atonement” catapulted Ian McEwan’s book back to number one in The Bookseller’s top 50 last September, and The Devil Wears Prada’s tie-in edition went on to sell more than 570,000 copies through Nielsen BookScan, following the film’s release in October 2006. Memoirs of a Geisha, Notes on a Scandal, Brokeback Mountain and PS I Love You are others that have enjoyed a fillip.

Rachel Cugnoni, Vintage publishing director, says issuing a tie-in edition is “absolutely a no-brainer”. “It is not always touched with gold,” she adds. “But nevertheless, most of the time it spells really good news for us, and sometimes with astonishing results.” Larry Finlay, Transworld m.d., agrees. “You don’t um and err if an adaptation is getting a big cinematic release,” he says. “When a film is based on a great book, the sales can be enormous.”

However, it is not as simple as slapping on a tie-in cover and voila! Susan Opie, HarperFiction editorial director, will publish a tie-in to the adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl this March. She says: “Oh no—nothing takes care of itself. [There are] all sorts of added challenges. It’s always worth doing, but you have to be realistic, because you’re not in charge of the film.”

In the nick of time
One of the main challenges is timing. Film companies work to very different schedules than publishers, and securing cover images and promotional material can often be a last-minute rush.

Opie stresses that it is vital to have a plan. “There’s no use thinking: ‘Oh, maybe we would like to have the film poster on the cover.’ As soon as you know who’s producing the film, you have to make contacts and be prepared for the fact that the two industries work on different time frames.”

Another problem can be the cover itself. Booksellers are divided on the attractiveness of tie-in images and are aware of a certain snobbery among book buyers. Some welcome them with open arms, while others are rather more sniffy.

Foyles’ Jonathan Ruppin says: “[There are] people who wouldn’t be seen dead with a film tie-in—at Foyles we rarely even bother with tie-in editions.” Nic Bottomley of Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath thinks that “some of the [tie-in] covers are howlers”, and tries to “avoid them like the plague”. Keeping the original cover running alongside the tie-in version is vital, Bottomley says, and a film can have a noticeable effect on book sales. “It’s great when there’s a film that has a strong connection to a book; it definitely boosts sales. If producing the film tie-in helps increase the market, then it helps every edition that’s out there.”

Borders, meanwhile, displays film tie-ins prominently and, according to fiction buyer Michael Jones, they have featured in the chain’s top 10 bestsellers every week for the past six months.

An extra shot at sales
Despite differences over aesthetics, publishers know that a tie-in edition will help a backlist title back into the front of stores. Paul Baggaley, HarperPerennial publishing director, says: “Usually both editions would be kept available, but realistically, if you’re going to get them into a central retail promotion, [retail chains] will want the film tie-in—that’s what has immediate recognition.”

Putting the film’s artwork on a cover is about attracting new readers, reviving a book’s bestseller potential. “What any film does is reach an audience we can never reach, even with our biggest bestsellers, ‘Richard & Judy’ picks and Man Booker Prize-winners,” Cugnoni says. “There are still lots of people who will not go and buy a book unless it has been made into a film.” Bottomley agrees that “when you get a film, it gives people an excuse to read things, even if they wouldn’t read it otherwise”.

Opinions diverge on whether a film has to be a mega-blockbuster—à la “Atonement”—for the original book to re-enter the public’s consciousness. Simon Burke, Waterstone’s fiction buying manager, says: “A film tie-in succeeds or fails on the strength and longevity of the parent movie—something in and out of the cinemas in a weekend is not going to have the effect of a blockbuster.”

However, even an arthouse movie on limited distribution can have a measurable impact. When the adaptation of Imre Kertész’ Fatelessness was released, for example, Vintage sold 10,000 of the film tie-in—twice the expected paperback sales. “It isn’t a huge amount,” Cugnoni says, “but it’s still something where we can reap the benefits on a title by an unknown author. We want every book to fulfil its potential, and if we can double the sale of a book, then it’s worth our while.”

“Brick Lane”, based on Monica Ali’s novel, wasn’t as successful as expected, despite the controversy surrounding its production. But, Finlay says, the tie-in sold 40,000 copies, “which is not to be sniffed at by any means”. He also mentions “We Were Soldiers”, a Mel Gibson film that was out in the UK for only four weeks. “We picked up the rights to the book on which it was based [by Harold G Moore and Joseph L Galloway], turned it round on a sixpence, and went on to sell 250,000 copies,” he says. “The film was here and gone, but it’s a great book, with a great cover. [It’s about] being out there on the shelves, looking great and continuing to sell brilliantly.”

Film-makers don’t bite
An important part of ensuring sales is the publisher’s relationship with the film company. “Make sure everyone talks to each other,” Opie says. “Film companies are usually only too willing to talk to you about who is going to be the promotions manager. We do come from different industries, but we’re not a million miles apart—neither side bites.”

In the case of Atonement, Cugnoni says the film company was more than happy to collaborate on cross-promotion, owing to McEwan’s high profile. However, it is not always so straightforward. “What we find most often is that we’re hanging on to their coat- tails, and we’re like slightly irritating flies,” she says.

Cugnoni adds that it is worth persevering nonetheless. “Even if the film isn’t great, [film companies] still spend more money than any publisher has ever spent on promoting one single book. So even if the film gets badly reviewed, a very obvious and high-profile image is being flashed up in every media. You’re getting more coverage, attention and profile than you would in any book campaign.”

A tie-in packed year
This year is also packed with literary adaptations, and publishers have high hopes for their titles. Opie believes The Other Boleyn Girl adaptation will be “quite a big one”. “The promotions will feature the new cover, with a rather spectacular Scarlett Johansson. [The film] ticks all the right boxes.”

Finlay is looking forward to the adaptations of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Sophie Kinsella’s The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, and is hoping for The Devil Wears Prada-esque success for the latter. “Kinsella has been such a top mainstream author for so many years, and yet this is the first time she is coming to celluloid, so there will be a lot of discussion about the books, I’m sure.”

Vintage’s forthcoming tie-in editions include one for Cape graphic novel Persepolis. “It’s the first time we’ve done a graphic novel tie-in,” Cugnoni says. “It will be interesting in terms of whether it’s going to be worthwhile.” At HarperPerennial, Baggaley is looking to replicate the success of Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries with two more Guevara books coinciding with two major forthcoming films.

There will also be tie-ins for the film versions of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (Picador), directed by Peter Jackson; Amanda Foreman’s Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (Flamingo), featuring Keira Knightley; and Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road (Vintage), which reunites Kate Winset and Leonardo di Caprio in 2009.

Meanwhile, Vintage, Picador, Harvill Secker and HarperPerennial will no doubt have an eye on proceedings in Los Angeles on Sunday, hoping for the ultimate icing on the tie-ins cake.

2008's tie-ins / adaptation release date

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury) / 26th Dec (2007)
PS I Love You by Cecelia Aherne (Harper) / 4th Jan
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (Picador) / 18th Jan
The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith (Puffin) / 8th Feb
Jumper by Steven Gould (HarperVoyager) / 14th Feb
Oil! There Will Be Blood by Upton Sinclair (Penguin) / 15th Feb   
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Harper) / 7th Mar   
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (Penguin) / 21st Mar   
Beaufort by Ron Leshem (Harvill Secker) / 28th Mar   
The Ruins by Scott Smith (Corgi) / 18th Apr   
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Cape) / 25th Apr   
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martínez (Abacus) / 25th Apr   
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? by Morgan Spurlock (Harvill Secker) / 9th May    
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (Black Swan) / 20th June   
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian by C S Lewis (HarperCollins) / 27th June   
Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (HarperCollins) / 25th July   
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (Penguin) / 12th Sept   
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People by Toby Young (Abacus) / 3rd Oct   
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (Black Swan) / 24th Oct   
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Phoenix) / 26th Dec  
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (Vintage) / 9th Jan 2009   

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