Congratulations! Now Get Out There And Sell, Sell, Sell!

When an author wins the Booker Prize, as Alan Hollinghurst just did, publishers more or less expect a sales bonanza. But awards are no guarantee of public acclaim, and there’s a lot of heavy lifting to be done to meet those high sales expectations. Hollinghurst is discovering that, for the recipient of the Booker, the work has only just begun. Job one: divest the literary press of the notion that he is a “gay writer” and that his book is a breakthrough work of “gay fiction.”