Cuckoo's Calling, Instant Collectible?

Have you got a first edition of Robert Galbraith's The Cuckoo's Calling? If so, you're in luck! The Sunday Times of London revealed yesterday that the debut detective novel was not, in fact, written by a former Royal Military Police investigator but instead by mega-bestselling author, J. K. Rowling. The book was published this spring in the UK by Sphere, part of Little, Brown Book Group, and in the US by Mulholland Books, also an imprint of Little, Brown. It received rave reviews, unlike the novel Rowling published under her own name last fall, The Casual Vacancy.

According to the Times, Cuckoo's Calling had only sold about 1,500 copies in the UK before Rowling's secret was discovered by a reporter who was tipped off on Twitter. Now the book is flying off the shelves. A spokesman for Waterstones, one of England's biggest bookselling chains, told the Washington Post that they had only a handful of copies of The Cuckoo's Calling scattered around the country when the news broke, and they prompted sold out. Both Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com were out of stock by the end of the day. The New York Times reported that a second printing with an amended author biography has already been ordered, but it is surely the first printing that will be important to collectors.

Image via MulhollandBooks.com.