The Matthew Effect in Literary Careers: Does Early Success Foster Future Success?

The "Matthew effect" refers to a "rich-get-richer" mechanism whereby early success shapes subsequent achievement. We examine whether this mechanism operates in literary careers by analyzing whether early commercial or critical success leads to cumulative advantages in authors' subsequent works. Using weekly bestseller data for Italian fiction spanning 1975-2025 and exploiting a panel structure at the author-book level, we estimate both baseline OLS models and an Event Study Design. We consider multiple definitions of success, including winning a major literary prize and sustained presence on bestseller lists. Our findings show that prize-based success has virtually no effect on the performance of subsequent books, whereas sustained bestseller success is associated with a small but positive effect on future success. This divergence is likely driven by the fact that literary prizes often induce readers to consume books that fall outside their usual preferences. Our results are robust across alternative specifications, and the positive effect of bestseller success is stronger for younger authors, for women and for books published in more recent decades.