Does Being ‘Banned’ Help Book Sales?

Sort of a literary Streisand Effect. Publishers used to love it when they could put
the words “Banned in Boston” on a book’s cover—the phrase was bound
to increase sales. So it’s reasonable to suspect that getting
listed as “banned” during
Banned Books Week is going to help an author find readers. The
analysts at Next Big Sound have crunched some numbers and, by one
measure at least, their figures are consistent with the theory.

Here’s an excerpt from their
write-up:

Each year, hundreds of books are challenged in the US, meaning
that a group or individual petitions to have the book removed from
curriculum or libraries, often on the basis of explicit content and
profanity. The American Library Association tallies all documented
complaints and publishes a list of the top
ten most challenged books annually.

Over the years, such classics as To Kill a
Mockingbird and Joseph
Heller’s Catch-22 have been
banned or challenged. And this year the top ten includes major
titles, several of which have been successfully adapted to the
silver screen, from the Hunger Games series,
to The Perks Of Being A Wallflower.

It seems the spotlight does indeed have a positive impact for
these books, at least if you look at book recommendation network
Goodreads.

Comparing Goodreads Adds during BBW to the week prior, only one
of the single-volume books did not see a lift in
activity….Several books listed as most challenged are actually
series. In these cases we can identify a lift in Goodreads
activity, though not necessarily for every volume in the
collection.