By Gautam Malkani

It was a big day for a small publishing house in north-east England.

Bloodaxe Books, a non-profit company motivated by a love of poetry, is one of the main English-language publishers of Tomas Transtr?mer, the Swedish poet who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

?The phone hasn?t stopped ringing,? says Neil Astley, the founding editor. ?We?ve already pushed through a reprint of Transtr?mer?s work with the prize [flagged] on the front cover.?

Fortunately, Bloodaxe was well prepared, having recently published an expanded edition of the poet?s work to mark his 80th birthday in April.

But the accolade does not always translate into English-language versions of a winning author?s work reaching bookshelves so easily.

In theory, of all the prizes bestowed by the Nobel Academy, the award for literature ought to be the easiest one for the public to judge for itself. After all, you don?t need to understand the ins and outs of nuclear physics, incurable diseases or inoperable economics; you just need to pick up one of the prize winner?s books and read.

But for book lovers, retailers and publishers, that is often easier said than done because of the tendency to honour writers whose work has lacked the attention it deserves outside their home territories. In the anglophone, Anglocentric world, many winners have therefore been at best, obscure; at worst, out of print.

Faced with a flurry of media interest and demand for books, publishers who learn that one of their authors has won have sometimes needed to speed-read contracts instead of manuscripts. Even when English-language translations do exist, if a title has fallen out of print, some publishing rights typically need to be renewed.

?There?s a really short window of activity and then a wait for the republished books,? explains Philip Jones, deputy editor of The Bookseller magazine.

When French-language writer JMG Le Cl?zio was named the Nobel winner in 2008, both Vintage and Penguin, sister company of the Financial Times, raced to resurrect their respective rights in order to republish his books in English. The titles – with redesigned covers to reflect his newly elevated literary status – were in bookshops by November, a month after the initial burst of public interest but well in time for the award ceremony in December.

Another reason the prize can prove such a logistical challenge for publishers is that unlike many other cultural awards – whether for books, film, theatre or music – the Nobel Prize in Literature is for an artist?s entire body of work rather than just their latest offering.

?When it happens you just have to get the books out there as quickly as possible,? says Pete Ayrton, editor-at-large at Serpent?s Tail, one of the UK publishers of Herta M?ller, the Romanian-born German who was awarded the prize in 2009, as well as Austria?s Elfriede Jelinek, who won in 2004 and Japan?s Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 winner.

?People work round the clock – though it?s something you?re very glad to do. It always comes as a complete surprise so it wouldn?t be rational to have a plan in place to reprint a particular author.?

No wonder, then, that some observers expect ebooks and print-on-demand technology will help publishers better capitalise on the buzz that follows the announcement of the winner.

?I think the prize could provide a test case to see whether the global English-language digital distribution network really works – whether you can get a book to someone in Bogot? in a couple of hours,? says Mr Jones.

But while Bloodaxe has started selling its first ebooks of Transtr?mer?s work, Graywolf Press, one of the poet?s US publishers, is less enthusiastic about the format.

?Unfortunately there is not currently a suitable e-format for publishing poetry that maintains the form and line breaks of the poems, so we will not be publishing it in ebook form,? it stated.

? The Financial Times Limited 2011