'Thrilled' Faber presses button on 45,000 reprint for 'Milkman'

Faber has confirmed a 45,000 reprint of Anna Burns' Milkman this morning, following its Man Booker win last night.

Faber's UK sales director Dave Woodhouse said: "We've done about 20,000 of the paperback so far, so we have about 65,000 [including the reprint], and we expect it to sell in six figures now." The paperback edition was published on 20th September.

Burns' previous sales history has been modest: Nielsen BookScan's TCM has recorded sales of 13,453 for her earlier novel No Bones, as well as 2,059 for Milkman in hardback, and 3,547 in paperback. But booksellers responded positively to the choice, although with some reservations about the degree of "challenge" the book poses to readers.

At Waterstones, fiction buyer Bea Carvalho said: “Anna Burns is a very worthy winner; we’re delighted that her remarkable novel has gained the recognition that it deserves. Milkman is an extraordinary, captivating book which tackles dark and weighty themes with generous compassion and surprising humour. In the run up to last night’s announcement it had been our bestseller of the shortlisted titles, and we’re thrilled to have this opportunity to share it with many more readers.” John Clegg, bookseller at the London Review Bookshop, said: "It’s been selling like hot cakes here at the London Review Bookshop– it’s the shortlisted novel we did best with. Lots of our customers came in yesterday to speculate on the shortlist and this was their pick too. This book could have been made for our shop. We’re delighted."

Brett Wolstencroft, manager of Daunt Books in Marylebone, said: "It's probably the book we can increase the sales of enormously [from the shortlist], it is an exciting and unusual book. In terms of the shortlist, very few of them on there were going to be books that would be launched into orbit with [the win]. But from that [selection] this is an exciting and brave book. Clearly more people will look at it now it's in paperback."

At indie Drake - The Bookshop, in Stockton, owner Richard Drake agreeed: "With Milkman being in paperback it will be interesting to see how it sells compared with previous years - we don’t generally sell a lot of hardbacks... It would be good if the Man Booker was just a tiny bit more mainstream in its tastes, but I guess that’s what the Costa is for. " 

Nic Bottomley, co-owner of Mr B's Emporium in Bath, said the book had been the shop's third bestselling title on the shortlist behind Daisy Johnson and Richard Powers, but added: "When I heard Kwame Anthony Appiah.[Man Booker chair of the judges] describe it as 'challenging' that did worry me. He describes it as challenging in the same way a walk up Mount Snowdon is challenging... but it's fair to say that only a fairly modest proportion of overall book buyers come in and say, 'You know what I need? I need a challenge like walking up Snowdon'." However the fact the book was already in paperback was "great" for booksellers, Bottomley added.

Faber c.e.o. Stephen Page described the win as "absolutely thrilling". He told The Bookseller: "The world has become more interested in original writing again and this book is the absolute epitome of that, it's an absolutely wonderful novel. It's funny, it's clever, but it's also deeply moving. It teaches you something about life and the truth of it so we are incredibly proud to have published it. More than that I just feel thrilled for Anna Burns who is an incredibly serious writer whose journey here has been tough, so for her to have this success and for readers to find this book is just wonderful."

Faber editorial director Louisa Joyner, the book’s editor, commented:  "The sheer force of the Man Booker, its reach and its heft could not be more powerfully deployed than on behalf of this landmark novel. A working class writer, a female protagonist with a quality of perception that sits in stark contrast to her ability to control any of the things it perceives, Milkman embodies the times we live in. It gives voice to people we almost never hear from, in print and in the flesh, and thanks to Man Booker, the world will get to hear its cry at a time when those in power really, really need to listen."

Interviewed on Radio 4's "Today Programme" this morning (17th October), Burns revealed she would use the £50,000 winnings to pay off her debts and return to finishing an earlier book. "It will make a huge monetary difference, I will become solvent and live on what's left. Writers don't earn a lot of money so that's a huge gift that's been given to me," she said.

On the subject of her next book, she said: "To me, Milkman is really my fourth book because I have a third book which is almost completed and I'd like at some point to be able to go back and complete that but I can't really talk about that because it's not finished, so I'll lose the energy if I start doing that."

Faber's latest win follows a "stellar" year which saw the indie deliver a top-line turnover of £18.47m and gross profit of £9.683m in 2017.