In an article titled Why the Booker is Highly Prized in "The Times" this weekend, Danuta Kean gives a rundown on how lucrative a win really is, and concludes by saying: "Nobody really loses with the Booker. Even the most controversial choices sell - Keri Hulme's The Bone People sold 38,000 copies in 1985 and is still in print. Booker winners never go out of print - for authors looking for immortality in an age when publishers delete books with shameless haste that is the biggest prize of all."
Maybe the author should take a look back to the beginning of the Booker history: Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby is impossible to buy outside of antiquarian bookshops. Abebooks.com has its cheapest copy listed at $US90.98, with other copies of the first edition ranging up to $US750. Not exactly "in print".
