State press prepares 50,000 more Wilder autobiographies

The little press that could continues to total up sales numbers for a book that far surpassed initial expectations.

"Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography" is in its fourth week on the New York Times Best Sellers list and as of early May will have 125,000 copies in print.

"We were anticipating we would print 5,000," said Nancy Tystad Koupal, director of the South Dakota Historical Society Press. "By the time we went to press in October last year, we had about 7,000 orders, and we knew we needed to double it."

"Pioneer Girl" is based on an autobiography Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in the early 1930s. It never was published, but the manuscript is well known through the "Little House" series of books that Wilder wrote for children. Pamela Smith Hill edited the annotated autobiography.

Copies of "Pioneer Girl' from the third printing are available through the South Dakota Historical Society Press and at retail locations. Distributors, online book sellers and book stores will receive more books from a fourth and a fifth print run, totaling 50,000 copies, that will be shipped late this month and in early May, according to Jeff Mammenga, media coordinator for the South Dakota State Historical Society.

Fourth and fifth print runs are being released simultaneously because the state press used two different printers, Koupal said. A sixth print run likely will come in late summer or early fall in preparation for the Christmas market.

"But who knows?" Koupal said. "Every time I guess on this it just goes crazy. I have no idea what will really happen. It has been amazing. What a wonderful situation for everybody: for the trust, for the editor, for the press. It's all good."

Getting a book on the New York Times list happens rarely to small presses, she said. The success of "Pioneer Girl" depended on several things.

"We knew we had a perennially popular author, Laura Ingalls Wilder," Koupal said. "We had a book that we had worked very hard to make sure it was readable and accessible, not one academic talking to another. We knew we had a readable book and a popular author, but we didn't think best seller."

Hill, the editor, has continued to respond to media questions and appeared on public radio Thursday noon. She teaches what is called a massive online open course on Wilder through a Missouri state university with more than 5,000 people signed up. The class's second half started recently.

"I think she's discovering there's life after 'Pioneer Girl,' " Koupal said.

As for the director, things still haven't quieted down that much. She described herself as feeling elated and overwhelmed at the same time.

"It's a wonderful thing, and yet it means a lot of unanticipated work," Koupal said. "It's a great problem to have, however."