I nearly missed this intriguing article about a study done by three professors (two from English departments, and one who is the associate director of Stanford’s Literary Lab) that tries to determine the significance of winning or being nominated for a literary prize. To do so, they track the popularity of the book, gauged by reviews of it on Goodreads, and the prestige, gauged by MLA citations. Entertainingly, the authors of the study do not use sales data to track a book’s popularity because, “Sales data is a notoriously unreliable measurement of readership; it is gathered at point of sale, when a book is purchased online or from a brick-and-mortar retailer. As the stacks of unread books on our desks and nightstands surely attest, purchasing is no indication of actually reading.”
Their studies of Goodreads and MLA citations, however, unsurprisingly find that the effect of literary prizes is substantial. “Books receiving no prize nominations have a median of about 48,500 Goodreads ratings and appear as the primary subjects of no MLA articles. But if a book is nominated for at least one of the prizes we track, those numbers jump to about 56,000 Goodreads ratings and 17 MLA citations. And for books that have won a prize, the numbers are about 98,500 Goodreads ratings and 23 MLA citations.”
They note, as well, that it’s even more important to be nominated for a prize than it is to win. Merely being nominated can move a book from limbo to a respectable place in both sales and cites.
It seems clear that prizes, and nominations for prizes, are good things for authors and their sales. I’m not sure, however, that they serve equally well as information surrogates for readers. Winning a big literary prize may just signal that the winning book is the kind of book that judges for literary prizes happen to like. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll like it. Or winning may signal that the book has tapped into the zeitgeist of a particular moment. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will age well. The individual taste of the particular reader matters more for their personal enjoyment than does any prize.
I do think it would be interesting to see a study that distinguishes between positive and negative Goodreads reviews, as this does not, and one that distinguishes between positive and negative MLA cites, as this one also does not. (Surely not all those MLA citations of The DaVinci Code are enthusiastic ones!) That might go some way to helping clarify whose tastes are being signaled when prizes are given.
READER COMMENTS
David Henderson
Sep 5 2019 at 3:41pm
Interesting piece, Sarah.
I wonder about this sentence: “They note, as well, that it’s even more important to be nominated for a prize than it is to win.” That’s hard to believe because one would expect some incremental value, however small, of winning. More believable and, indeed, quite plausible would be the value of being nominated exceeds the incremental value of being awarded a prize once one has been nominated.
Dylan
Sep 5 2019 at 7:07pm
David,
I’m pretty sure your interpretation is the natural way to read Sarah’s sentence, since you can’t win without first being nominated. However, looking at the actual changes in the two variables quoted here, I’m not sure how that conclusion is supported? It looks like being nominated gets you about 15% more Goodreads ratings, while actually winning gets you 75% more ratings than just being nominated, which is a pretty big difference. Of course MLA cites are the other way around, where you get the majority for being nominated, and only a few more for winning…but I’d want to know the relative value of each before saying whether being nominated is more important than winning.
Sarah Skwire
Sep 6 2019 at 9:20am
David,
I was summarizing this paragraph.
“In short, prizes matter. But more surprising is the effect of a nomination alone. With only an appearance on the Booker shortlist, a book moves from total obscurity in the classroom and the pages of literary criticism to respectable showings in both—and it gets a healthy popularity boost along the way. Of course, a win gooses the stats across the board, but the difference between utter obscurity and modest fame is arguably greater than the difference between modest and runaway success. It’s that first move that sets your book apart from the 100,000 published alongside it. When it comes to contemporary fiction, it’s an honor just to be nominated.”
Alan Goldhammer
Sep 5 2019 at 4:10pm
My wife and I were at the Library of Congress Book Festival this past Sunday for the Richard Powers talk which was wonderful. He’s won almost every prize there is as well as a Macarthur genius award. I looked at the referenced paper but they don’t synthesize the list of books that were covered so I cannot tell wither there was a Powers book on the list.
I was hoping to get a book signed for my daughter who is a music therapist at a children’s hospital of a leading US medical school (two of his books are somewhat related to what she does with young patients). The line for Powers was the longest of that particular session and it was interesting that he was right next to Joyce Carol Oates. She had to keep her line moving as her session was to begin at 7 PM (session started at 5:30). Unfortunately, my aging knees and the need to meet up with my wife for our dinner reservation meant I had to leave the line as it was going to be at least another half hour before I would get up to meet him (I had been in line for an hour and a half). I estimated that there were probably 150 people in the Powers group and each had a book to sign.
I’m not sure which of his 12 books I would recommend to a libertarian economist group but my three favorites are: ‘The Goldbug Variations’, ‘The Time of Our Singing’ and ‘The Echo Maker’. His choice of themes is always grand and his writing impeccable.
Mark Z
Sep 5 2019 at 8:01pm
One issue with the potential study: knowing that a book won a prize may influence one’s review of it (I’m sure many a reviewer would like to think his taste is as discerning as that of the Nobel committee). Rather – assuming one has the cooperation of the prize committee – assign readers to read books after the winners or nominees have been decided but not yet announced. Then have another cohort review them after the winners/nominees are announced. Then you could tell not only how well the prizes cohere with readers’ tastes, but also how they affect their self-perceived tastes.
Sarah Skwire
Sep 6 2019 at 9:22am
Mark-
Agreed! There are some links in the original article that detail some objections raised to the literary prize process.
S
Philip L
Sep 6 2019 at 8:08pm
There’s a fantastic book written on this topic called the “Economy of Prestige”. I guess a classic utilitarian answer to this world depend on your perspective. For an author, I would imagine that probably more authors care about awards and prestige than sales after a certain point. If Cormac McCarthy had to choose between a Nobel and selling another 10-15million books, I’d guess he’d pick the Nobel.
Comments are closed.