Carrie Fisher's books rush to reprint after sales were 'wiped out by demand'

After Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death on Dec. 27, her books saw an uptick in sales, becoming Amazon best-sellers overnight and selling out at various booksellers. Now, her publisher Simon & Schuster has confirmed to EW that they are working to reprint her literary work and meet sales demands.

“We are responding to the outpouring of interest in Carrie Fisher’s work and are quickly reprinting her books,” Jonathan Karp, President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Publishing Group, tells EW by email. “All of them have remained in print, but our supply was wiped out by demand. We’ll have more books this week.” According to the publishing house, they have sold approximately 500,000 copies of Fisher’s work in the course of her career.

Simon & Schuster tells EW they have ordered more than 50,000 additional copies of Fisher’s titles, including 20,000 copies of the 2008 memoir Wishful Drinking, 20,000 copies of the 1987 novel Postcards From The Edge, 10,000 copies of 2011’s memoir Shockaholic, and 2,500 copies of the 2004 novel The Best Awful.

Most famous for her acting roles in Star Wars, Hannah and Her Sisters, and When Harry Met Sally, Fisher was also a prolific author, earning many accolades for her wit and prose. Her latest work, The Princess Diarist, chronicles her time on the Star Wars sets and debuted earlier this year. Just after her death, the memoir topped Amazon’s best-sellers list, sending its publishers Blue Rider Press, back to press for an additional 80,000 copies, bringing the grand total of hardcover books in print to 188,000. The Amazon best-seller list also included Wishful Drinking and Postcards From the Edge in its top 10.

Fisher was lauded for writing candidly about her bipolar disorder, drug use, and sometimes strained relationship with her mother, Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, who died one day after Fisher.