The Stand (novel) Have sales increased from swine flu?

[tuttle300]

I honestly do not wish to be morbid but I am undyingly curious

Stephen's classic novel (not the comicbook) The Stand....
and the recent swine flu outbreak....
Has your office noticed any increase in sales of the book?
And of course you, as the Moderator, have the right not to disclose such info, but the mild curiosity remains.
Thanks if you do tell us-- tuttle

[Moderator]

The publisher doesn't send us sales figures but since the story has only recently broken in the news here, I wouldn't expect to see any increases yet even if there were any.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

I was wondering the same thing, and it does coincide well with the graphic novel, it'll be interesting to see if it does.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Tooley]

I do want to throw out that my local bookstore stocks several Stephen King books per week and The Stand is usually among them. Once The Stand is on the shelf, it is usually gone by the end of the week.

[tuttle300]

I also noticed on a CNN webpage that sales of Atlas Shrugged were really flying off the shelves by the thousands and thats due to the economic crisis

[aptpupil]

Interesting question, but as Ms Mod rightly says, early days.

Perhaps sales of "I Am Legend" (both the Richard Matheson novel and the Will Smith DVD) will also receive a boost, as, if you believe all that you hear, we could soon be part of a small group of survivors fighting for existence.

Back to reality, however, I expect that novel sales generally might increase if millions of us find ourselves confined to bed for a while with this exotic new disease. :eyebrow:

[Teddy Duchamp]

Strange to read this today as I thought of the Stand straight away when I heard the news on telly this morning.

Would it not be only Stephen King fans that would make the connection though?

[JohnDalglish]

Would it not be only Stephen King fans that would make the connection though?

Hi,

Maybe si, maybe no, I think.

For ever one of us who's read it there must be 10, or a 100, that have seen the movie on it's numerous excursions on TV world-wide.

And the graphic novel must be opening out a whole new audience for the masterpiece.

Ms Mod, it would be interesting to know what the sales of Sai Kings were, i.e does The Stand outsell IT etc, how many are coming to the journey of the Dark Tower year on year etc, and what proportion DT is to the rest of his canon?

Perhaps the information would be best available for the UK, since that's one single publisher, unlike the US.

I think it would be good for the main site.

Long days and pleasant nights

[K4driver]

i thought of the stand first thing i heard of swine flu. my opinion is Bring on Randal Flagg..

[Jasonbobdude]

Strange to read this today as I thought of the Stand straight away when I heard the news on telly this morning.


I'm not the only one, I guess. :P

I have a feeling that from now on, whenever there's a possibility of a huge pandemic disease, I'm going to think of The Stand.

I imagine that if something like that ever actually happens, then you can just head to Boulder knowing that there will be other survivors heading there as well, and you can start rebuilding society from there. Not because of 108-year-old women appearing to them in dreams, but because they read the book.

[Ben E Gas]

I never really thought about the sales going up, but I am reading the Stand right now and the news story really got me thinking.

[JohnDalglish]

I never really thought about the sales going up, but I am reading the Stand right now and the news story really got me thinking.

Hi,

The first time I read The Stand way back when, I got flu about two days into it.

It was a uncomfortable read in some ways LOL

Although , on the bright side, I got a chance to finish it in bed while supplied with hot drinks etc

Long days and pleasant nights

[King Jacob]

We talked about the swine flu in German class today. The Stand certainly did come to mind.

[mrbeer]

Haha, I'm re-reading The Stand now, and as soon as I heard the news I was thinking "hmmm... Swine Flu huh, GOVERNMENT COVER-UP!" yeah i'm paranoid, but that's what reading SK will do. :laugh:

[Checkman]

To be honset I prefer that a "Super" Flu stay in the world of fiction. But I have also been thumbing through the novel. Not sure why except the people tend to be morbid at times.

[marew1]

I agree with Ms. Mod, too early to tell. Also, there are a lot of people out there not familiar with the works of SK. IMO, I don't foresee an increase in sales of The Stand.

[tillyn]

When i watch the news, i seldom think of a book i've read , Never crossed my mind about the Stand when i heard about the swine flu. Just thought here we go again, lived through Sars. Lots of hand washing then and still, guess tourism is going to be hit hard this summer.

[psj77]

In the book it started in California and moved to texas. In real life it started in Mexico then California then Texas. :eyebrow:

[mylife4usk]

i thought of the stand first thing i heard of swine flu. my opinion is Bring on Randal Flagg..

Are you out of your mind?! :eek2: Dear God, I'm pretty much freakin out here. lol (hoping she dreams of Mother Abagail)

[pampam]

yeah that would be the ultimate case of life imitating art! ....imitating life imitating art imitating............

[gclark]

I am also reading the stand right now. does kind of change the prospective doesn't it? lol i work in the medical field, and I can tell you first hand that the emergency rooms are filling up with the "flu-like symptoms"....

[JayneH]

First thing I thought of as well ... funny how we all think alike isnt it.

[seanryan]

it's all starting to sound a little too much like a movie/book plot at this stage.

Here's hoping they get on top of it all.

+ yes the Stand was the first thing that went through my mind when I saw the news over the weekend.

Real life horror!

[Mr. Jingles]

When i watch the news, i seldom think of a book i've read , Never crossed my mind about the Stand when i heard about the swine flu. Just thought here we go again, lived through Sars. Lots of hand washing then and still, guess tourism is going to be hit hard this summer.

I agree....in Ontario, we have had our brains shaken by all the recent crap here - Mad Cow, Bird Flu, SARS, the lysteria outbreak, bouts of ecoli, product recalls from poisoning, and this past winter the seasonal flu was particularly bad. I am watching the second half of "The Stand" this week, and tell you the truth, it scares me a bit.

[catnoel]

I don't know, but I have dusted off my copy and am carrying it around in my backpack for reference.

[TheHardcase]

I always thought The Stand had more than a hint of prophecy to it. Although I think comparisons of the swine flu to Captain Trips are overblown, at least at this point.

[kingricefan]

yeah that would be the ultimate case of life imitating art! ....imitating life imitating art imitating............ Let's see, hmmm, SK wrote The Running Man in which an airliner flew into a tall building........SK wrote Rage in which a student takes his high school class hostage, shooting some people in the process......let's all pray that this new flu outbreak doesn't start looking like something from The Stand! Congress is supposed to be having a meeting in a couple of days to discuss what to do, but, by then it'll probably be way too late to contain the virus if it does turn out to be really bad. I hope I have dreams of an old black lady and Denver if it does!!:biggrin2:

[Patricia A]

I don't know if the flu has increased my sales of The Stand or not, it always sells quickly out of my store, especially the uncut edition.

When I get a copy in it rarely sits on the shelf for more than a day or two.
As a matter of fact I usually don't bother shelving it with the other books, I like to display it on a book easel (we call them weasels for some reason?) on the top of the shelf and presto! it disappears.
Everyone loves The Stand.

Many of Stephen King's constant readers who shop at my store draw parallels between what goes on in the 'real' world and SK plot lines as a topic of conversation.
So for the past few day there has been a lot of talk about The Stand and the real life threat of a pandemic flu.
Some fella was even joking about booking early for Boulder and everyone shopping in the section started laughing and agreed that that was a good idea. I called dibs on a window seat LOL.

The Dead Zone was a perfeckly heuge topic of comparison during George W Bush's presidency.
We made it out of that one ok, (knocks wood) so I think we'll manage this one too.

[Nelsonette]

The Stand is one of my favorite books (King's books take up a lot of space on my favorite books list) and this past weekend when I saw/read all this news about the Swing Flu...my first thought was "Oh crap, here comes Captain Trips."

Out of curiousity, has anyone seen the movie of The Stand? I'm really, really hesitant to watch it (most movies I've seen based on novels tend to fail at representing the book), but I've heard a couple of good things about it.

[Implementor]

First I would like to apologize up front for my lack of punctuation and paragraphing. I am not a writer and I hope you don't get eye strain.

I believe I may have an answer to your question about book sales of The Stand being affected by the recent swine flu outbreak. If you have heard of torrent files or programs such as Utorrent or BitTorrent then you know that you can download almost anything these days for free. I don't really agree with the whole thing because I believe artists such as Mr. King are entitled to compensation for their time and effort on such works as The Stand. After the recent news on the swine flu outbreak a friend of mine took it upon himself to download the The Stand miniseries from a torrent website. When you download something using a torrent file there's what is called a tracker that tells you how many seeds and how many leechers there are on a particular download. Seeds are people that have the complete download and leechers are people that are still in the process of downloading. My friend started downloading The Stand miniseries and there were several downloads available ranging from around 3 gigs - 9 gigs. The larger downloads usually indicate a better quality video. He chose to download the copy that was around 3 gigabytes in size because it was the smallest copy that had the most seeds which also meant he would get the fastest download speed. When he started downloading the 3 gig copy of The Stand there were 10 seeds and around 20 leechers. That was 3 days ago. As of today there are 190 seeds and 388 leechers. The highest quality DVD rip of The Stand he found is as I said 9 gigabytes. Three days ago the 9 gigabyte copy had 4 seeds and 16 leechers. As of today on the same 9 gig copy there are now 25 seeds and 179 leechers. That may not seem like a very large number of people but when you take into account the fact that the high quality version is so massive in size then you start to realise that's not so low of a number after all. A long explanation for such a simple question but I thought it was necessary to lay everything out so everyone could understand exactly what I was talking about. I believe the answer to your question is yes. The answer would have to be yes. There are many, many people that have no idea what a torrent is or that you can even download things such as this, so I believe that book sales for The Stand would had to have increased since the swine flu outbreak.

[JohnDalglish]

I always thought The Stand had more than a hint of prophecy to it. Although I think comparisons of the swine flu to Captain Trips are overblown, at least at this point.

Hi,

As a layman I can't comment on the in a medical sense, although I sincerely hope (and believe) that you're right.

However, in terms of official misinformation and media manipulation I'm not so sure.

Long days and pleasant nights

[redrayne63]

You know as Im currently watching THE STAND for the umpteenth time...I have always said that Mr. King has an insight to God and the end of the world....in all of his novels that he's referenced R.F and Captain Tripps aka THE SUPER FLU... we are now seeing this in our day and time...we can use Mr. Kings novel as a guideline huh?

[ShootDaSquirrells]

I could see it getting a slight boost but i think we would need a bigger disease to spread for it to get a huge boost...it could happen too. I think today its less likely than it was for say the Bubonic Plague and all because of medical advancement and a basic understanding of the spread of germs. But I think if a huge disease comes and wipes out many. I Am Legend, The Stand, 28 Days Later, and of course The Bible (Book of Revelations) would all see huge increases in sales.

[K4driver]

Are you out of your mind?! :eek2: Dear God, I'm pretty much freakin out here. lol (hoping she dreams of Mother Abagail)

I meant Bring Him on so we can have a final stand against evil. Note When 99 percent of the population is gone...we all agree to meet in boulder. (I know I would dream of Mother Abigail, People say I remind them of Larry. )

[jchanic]

I'm waiting until this fall (when the swine flu is supposed to be REALLY coming back) to reread my copy of The Stand. Seems more appropriate then!

John

[Checkman]

New research shows that this strain of Swine Flu has alot in common with the Influenza that killed millions from 1917 - 1920. Wait and see I guess.

[K4driver]

so....We all ready to start the long trek to Boulder? I saw some old lady who looked Like mother Abigail....Same Day I saw my new doctor looks like Taub off of House. Now if I see Randal Flagg though....I am not Looking at Him.

[Checkman]

I live in southwestern Idaho so I'm already behind the eight ball. If I remember correctly this was part of the country that was Flagg's territory. Uh-oh. :eek2:

[K4driver]

I live in southwestern Idaho so I'm already behind the eight ball. If I remember correctly this was part of the country that was Flagg's territory. Uh-oh. :eek2:

I live in PA, I feel sorry for those in Las Vegas though. :down:

[Sarahlou]

I'm doing my bit to boost sales... The angel in me keeps saying to friends fretting about swine flu that it'll be fine, nothing came of SARS, bird flu, etc just be sensible washing hands etc and don't panic... then that little old devil on the other shoulder says by the way take a look at the Stand, that'll give you some ideas..... my bad...

[GBPack1]

I live in PA, I feel sorry for those in Las Vegas though. :down:

K4driver,
You can I can team up, I'm in PA too.

[Jesse Lovett]

Ok I read the first 3 books of the dark tower series and now i'm on the stand and plan to go back to dark tower but seriously what a time i picked to read The Stand huh!!! Its so crazy to read about it and then hear the same kinda stuff on the radio and everywhere lol just had to add
Jesse

[aeroplane]

Given that kids don't read enough anymore, if sales of anything have increased it'd probably be for The Stand on dvd :biggrin2:

[ShootDaSquirrells]

Given that kids don't read enough anymore, if sales of anything have increased it'd probably be for The Stand on dvd :biggrin2:

A common misconception. Many teenagers still read alot. However many of them won't go out and discuss books and all. I have many friends who read and all. What you should have said is not as many read anymore but its easy to see why...there are so many more things to do now than just read.

As for sales? No probably not. And if so then its probably an insignificant increase. Although I have to say swine flu is becoming a bigger epidemic than I imagined it would...it is not big enough to bring attention to The Stand.