Tag Archives: Publishers Weekly

“Small Presses Celebrate Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 150th Birthday”

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The national publication for book sellers and publishers, Publishers Weekly, featured the Pioneer Girl Project yesterday. Read the story from Claire Kirch below.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birth on February 7, 1867, and two small presses are marking the occasion by publishing books offering new perspectives on the life and times of the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie series.

The South Dakota Historical Society Press kicked off the anniversary year in May by publishing Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal. Koupal isn’t only the editor of this collection of 11 essays examining the life and times of the Little House on the Prairie books: she also is the director of the press, which published Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography.

The book was an instant bestseller, selling out of its 15,000-copy initial print run before its pub date. It became the hot—and hard-to-get—title of the 2014 holiday season—even though it clocked in at 472 pages and cost $40.

To date, Pioneer Girl has sold more than 165,000 copies and is in its 10th print run. In comparison, SDHSP’s second bestselling title, Tatanka and the Lakota People, has sold about 15,000 copies. Print runs for SDHSP titles typically range between 1,000–5,000 copies.

Despite the success of Pioneer Girl, Koupal insists that it wasn’t just the hope of publishing another bestseller about an author that people can’t seem to get enough of that steered her towards publishing Pioneer Girl Perspectives, which to date has sold 7,500 copies and is still in its first print run.

“We wanted more perspective moving forward with a textual study of Pioneer Girl,” she explained. “Why is she so popular? She wasn’t even a supporter of women’s suffrage and women’s rights.”

The first essay in the collection, “The Speech for the Detroit Book Fair, 1937,” is the transcription of a presentation Wilder made during a literary event held inside a Motor City department store. It is one of the rare occasions during which Wilder spoke publicly about her life and her books, and the speech includes reflections upon the world beyond the prairie and the famous little houses she lived in as a child.

Koupal said that she worked hard to make the essays accessible to the kinds of readers who snapped up copies of Pioneer Girl. The essays examine Wilder from various angles, and boast such intriguing titles as “The Strange Case of the Bloody Benders: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and Yellow Journalism” by Caroline Fraser and “Little Myths on the Prairie” by Michael Patrick Hearn. As an added treat for Wilder fans, the long-time attorney for the Little House Heritage Trust, Noel Silverman, for the first time discusses Wilder in a Q&A with Koupal in “Her Stories Take You with Her: The Lasting Appeal of the Little House Books.” His take on why Wilder is still so popular? It’s because her tales emphasize interdependence among members of a community rather than independence. “[Wilder’s] narrative says that I can build a better house, faster, if Mr. Edwards will help me, in return for which I will gladly help him build his house,” Silverman states in the Q&A.

Pub Weekly

Read more at publishersweekly.com.

 

One Year! The Pioneer Girl Project Celebrates the First Anniversary since the release of “Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography”

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It is hard to believe that one year has passed since the Pioneer Girl Project first unloaded pallets upon pallets and boxes upon boxes of books—readying them to be sent out all over the world. And what a year it has been!

Places like The Bookstore at Fitger's, in Duluth, MN, put Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography front and center in their stores.

Places like The Bookstore at Fitger’s, in Duluth, MN, put Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography front and center in their stores.

“The past twelve months have been a wild ride,” says Nancy Tystad Koupal, director of the Pioneer Girl Project. “We are ecstatic; the success of the book has been beyond our wildest dreams.”

On November 17, 2014, the South Dakota Historical Society Press released Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography. And, as readers of this site know, the first three printings quickly sold out as the title became the “it book” of the 2014 holiday season. As more copies rolled off the presses, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography jumped up to number one on Amazon.com and spent six weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, an amazing accomplishment for what various media networks have dubbed “a small press on the prairie.”

To date, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography has sold over 145,000 copies and been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio. It has over 2,635 ratings and 600 reviews on Goodreads and has been held up as the best way to publish a famous author’s first draft—see the Willamette Week’s review of Go Set a Watchman and numerous conversations on Reddit/r/books. It is the stuff of publishing legends. And it does not end there.

PW Mitzis Tweet

Mitzi’s Books, an independent bookstore in Rapid City, SD, gave a shout out to the Press over Twitter when they received their issue of Publishers Weekly.

The November 2, 2015, issue of Publishers Weekly featured Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography on the cover. And the November 23, 2015, issue will feature a story about the book and Press.

What a great year it has been!

—Jennifer McIntyre

Talk of the Town: BookExpo America, 2015

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BookExpo America is the largest book conference in the world, and it attracts big names and industry giants. Held this past week in New York City, May 27-29, the event showcases such popular authors as Rainbow Rowell and James Patterson. Luckily, we had Laura Ingalls Wilder on our side, along with a couple of children’s stories by L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz. In 2014, the little booth with gigantic books was big news, and this year coverage of the little press on the prairie continued.

In her article for Publishers Weekly, correspondent Claire Kirch talks about the big-name authors that readers can find at the South Dakota Historical Society Press. She also reflected on last year’s BookExpo where the Press booth received a respectable amount of visitors as a new exhibitor but was not besieged by readers attempting to get “swag” from Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography.  “In hindsight,” Kirch states, “perhaps booksellers should have mobbed SDHSP’s booth last year.” The reason? “Pioneer Girl has sold 125,000 copies in five print runs since its publication,” Kirch notes. A few of those lucky readers that picked up the tote bag featuring Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography from last year’s BookExpo stopped by again to show us their coveted bag—a little worse for the wear after twelve months’ of daily use.

BookExpo America in New York created the opportunity for some great conversations with booksellers and librarians from around the United States, and Pioneer Girl Project staff got to share in the excitement of Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography with some of its most avid fans in the industry. I am looking forward to 2016 in Chicago.

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“Not-So-Little Sales on the Prairie”: Pioneer Girl is still available; More Books to Come

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Pubweekly sales chart

The week-to-week unit sales of Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography are analyzed by Publishers Weekly.

Now in its fourth week on the New York Times Best Sellers list, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill, continues to defy expectations. As the industry news source, Publishers Weekly, stated in its story “Not-So-Little Sales on the Prairie,” on March 30, transactions numbered close to 40,000 out of the 75,000 units printed, and the book remains on top-selling lists throughout the nation.

Moreover, bookstores report that this popular item continues to drive people to their stores. The customers who especially appreciate Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography?—those who prefer the physical book. “It’s this huge beautiful book, and it’s so much fun to spend time with and to hold,” said Sundance Books and Music employee Stephanie Lauer to Reno News & Review reporter D. Brian Burghart earlier this month. Never staying out of the limelight for long, the book appears in news articles weekly, links to which can be found on the Pioneer Girl Project Media Coverage page.

Copies of Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography from the third printing continue to be available to individuals through the South Dakota Historical Society Press, as well as at retail locations throughout the United States. Distributors, online book sellers, and book stores will receive more books from a fourth and a fifth print run, totaling 50,000 copies, that will be shipped at the end of April and beginning of May.

Jennifer McIntyre