Need proof that book challenges backfire?

• From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Since the conservative Catholic League and various evangelical Christian groups began cautioning parents through newsletters and e-mail three months ago, the series has seen a 500 percent increase in sales, according to Reuters, though much of that surge can be attributed to the movie.

• Remember the Sandpiper challenge?

From the Tuscaloosa News:

The Tuscaloosa County School Board has yet to decide whether the book "Sandpiper" should be kept on the library shelves — but four copies of the book are now in circulation at Brookwood High.

And they've all been checked out.

How does it work again?  Oh, right.  Banned in Boston, automatic bestseller.

Comments

[Robert Eiffert]

However, some of the checkouts are purposefully done to remove the book from circulation and some books get confiscated at home and kid won't say anything.

And in any case, there are too many 'librarians' that will, out of fear, not order those titles, pull book as a 'weed', and make their personal belief systems a deciding factor in selection.

It, unfortunately, doesn't take much review of the LM-Net archives to see what passes for intellectual freedom in the school library.

[Leila]

That's what happened with the Sandpiper case in the first place -- the student took it out, then she and her guardian (her grandmother, I'm pretty sure) refused to take it back. But, yeah, they were vocal about it -- if they hadn't been, it would have just been chalked up as a lost book, and who knows whether or not it would have been re-ordered.

Rough stuff.

[Rebekah]

Oh my abstract almighty diety!
I live in Lexington!

But besides that, book banning is completely stupid. And counterproductive in every imaginable way - it wins the banned book oodles of publicity, make it a miniature hero for civilian bookwormism and intellectualism everywhere, and makes the book banners look stupid.

[Brent Hartinger]

Well...yes, but it's complicated than that (IMHO). Getting the name "controversial author" can hurt an author's career in the long run. Book banning and challenges do work...sort of...if the point is to make it difficult for an author to break out. (And no, I'm not speaking of my own career.)

Ultimately, I do think certain challenges (the low-profile ones and even some of the high profile ones) succeed to preventing more book sales than they create.

Just my feelings based on talks with authors.

[Leila]

Oh, I agree that it's more complicated than that, especially (unfortunately) when it comes to library collections -- I realize that some librarians will avoid buying books because of possible controversy. (I'm actually pretty sure that's the reason my own library never bought Doing It -- but I've never had anything to do with the ordering, so I can't be totally sure of that.)

It was just funny to run into two articles that mentioned a significant increase in interest on the same day. If the Wittlinger book hadn't had all of that publicity, there certainly wouldn't have been four copies in circulation in that school library. I wonder if they have her new book.

It does seem like almost any high-profile controversy about a book will drive bookstore sales up, though -- remember when people were buying/selling copies of the recalled Opal Mehta on eBay because of the plagarism?