thread: 2009-10-27 : Book Publishing - Some Startling Numbers
On 2009-10-27, Ben Lehman wrote:
In 2006, I compared some numbers with my mother, who published a non-fiction book, Strong at the Heart though a major publisher at roughly the same time that I published Polaris.
At the time, she had sold about 10,000 copies; I had sold about 1,000 copies. Because she turned about $1 a copy and I turned about $10 a copy, we had made about equal amounts of money.
Since then, her sales have dropped to very low and mine have dropped to about a third of the first year, but continue apace. I think at this point I've probably made a chunk more money than her.
Strong at the Heart was a modestly successful book for young adult non-fiction. It wasn't a break out hit but it did well. It also had strong support from its publisher.
Polaris, by contrast, was a very but not earthshakingly successful indie game.
My thought is that the numbers above are polluted with vanity press publishers that don't do any support and marketing work on the books that the publish (note here that I'm defining vanity press as "don't do any support and work on the books they publish," so if a mainstream publisher falls into that category well, guess what?) Anything with an ISBN is tracked by Bookscan, so that includes a *lot* of complete crap as well as wonderful books that are completely unmarketed by their publishers*.
Also, anything that doesn't sell through standard distribution (like, for instance, sells via amazon, or via walmart) is not included. So for books which primarily sell via those media, they look like they're selling less than they are.
Nonetheless, for a fiction book, 1,000 is pretty much the baseline sales figure. Yes.
yrs—
—Ben
*If we were speaking in person, you would hear me getting angrier and angrier each time I mention this. I consider this akin to child abandonment.
