A question

Hi All

A question for all of you successful authors out there. Some, I have no doubt, if not all will not really wish to answer, but my question is: Just how many books are we, as modest unknown (as of yet, for many of us) authors actually selling. I'm new to the game and have been published by a small local author, and marketing leaves a little to be desired. I was out to dinner last night with another of his authors who has shifted about 15000 books in the last 5 years - is this good in the uk for a relatively unknown guy with a small publisher?? I'm sure some of the well known authors in the world are shifting that a week and I'm sure in some cases a lot more. I'm not really expecting big things - I guess so few make it big - but would just like to get a feel for how newly published authors fair and where I should be aiming. If I'm honest, just having the book published is a great achievement for me, but starting to sell in decent numbers would be the icing on the cake.

Ian

Dear Ian,
My book, Wooffer, has been out since 2004. If it sold 15,000 books, I would be over the moon! As it is, I think it is a little above average selling around 600 books since it first came out.

I am an unknown. I have no funds to market. Shelagh has helped me enormously. This message board is a great help and encouragement to me, too.

I wish you all the best.

Love,
Betty

Thanks Betty

I'll let my friend know how lucky he should feel - I have funds to market but as yet am unsure how to proceed and am just feeling the water. My publisher is doing his share but it all seems so slow. Patience is a virtue I guess!
I have a 2nd book ready to publish but am holding back until I see how the first fairs.
I feel the same about Shelagh and the message board so fingers crossed for the future.

Great website by the way,

Ian

Actually, 600 books is great, Betty, considering the lack of help you get. What did you do to sell that many?

Ian, I think asking how many books one can expect to sell is like asking what color is a shirt. Depends on the potential audience and marketing. My nonfic book is by a small press that does very little marketing. It has been in print for over 20 years, multiple editions -it sells alright, not great, but it has a niche, the niche buys it, and that's it. Simon and Schuster put out a competitor to it five years ago that is smaller, cheaper, and pretty bad. It way outsells mine, though, because they market it more and the author also has a popular forum where she pushes it. So it goes. I don't do any marketing myself.

My textbook is published by a big house that markets it heavily, and it's doing pretty well. My upcoming text is with another big house.

Big houses do market more than small, and it helps.

I think 600 copies is great too - i would love to have that many 'strangers' reading my work.

I get the point about 'big houses' but of course the problem is getting one to take you on. One of the problems as I see it is that having a small publishing house means that only small 'lots' are printed each time and this pushes the price up, which I guess will put some of the casual 'observers' off.

Ian

I don't know that small press necessarily correlates with small lots. Publishers don't share print run numbers (well, mine don't), but I'd think they correlate it with how many books they think they'll sell. Publishers always have a target number, it's partly how they decide to take on a project.

Dear LC,
I take no credit for it. It was words from many a mouth. I sent it, donated it, posted it, talked about it, signed books, went to schools, and many, many kind people read it and said lovely things about it. I wore myself and my funds and my daughter out.

I cannot explain the kindness that has been my lot. Shelagh edited it for the future publication. It is very good, now, with her attention.

I think of all the disappointed people who think that their words should attract crowds, I think of the people like Charles Dickens who worked his behind off in a market a lot less competetive to this one.

Everyone has something of value to say. Saying it in a way that attracts more than a mosquito who is into hot breath, that is the question.

Love,
Betty

True -Mine hasn't mentioned how many he has had printed, and I haven't asked, but I'm sure with a completely unknown author's first book he is perhaps on the conservative side. Having said that the price of my friend's 2nd book, which has sold 5000 copies is the same as mine, so who knows?

Ian

My last was in response to LC's post.

I won't ever be disappointed though Betty, as I never thought in a million years that my books would be published, so just the fact that my 1st is in print is enough for me. As I said; for it to sell would just be the icing on the cake.

Ian

Ian Weaver wrote:

Having said that the price of my friend's 2nd book, which has sold 5000 copies is the same as mine, so who knows?

Well, unless your book is of the same subject and has the same target market, the price, and how many he sold, is irrelevant for comparision purposes.

Well we have both produced works of fiction, though his his historical fiction, but I agree comparisons are probably irrelevent. My point was that as an established author with a fan base from his first novel, his 2nd is far more likely to sell than my first. Given that I would imagine the 'print lots' are bigger yet the price of his books remains just as high.

Ian

These blog posts might help. How to progress from a small to a big publisher:

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2008/10/going-from-small-presses-to-big.html

Average sales for POD books:

http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/2009/03/sales-statistics.html

(This is interesting; it states that a Lulu bestseller sells 500 copies. The article Billy linked to suggested that a Lulu book had sold close to 10,000 copies and made a six figure sum for the author -- most unlikely!)

Dear Ian,
Hope all hopes, dream all dreams, do all you can with all your heart and mind. That is what authors do. A writer puts their words out there for more than the money. They do it to connect to another mind.

Plain and simple.

Love,
Betty

Not me, I just want money. Mind connectors can telepath among themselves. lol.

Dear LC,
Connecting to other minds is why we write on message boards, too. Not for the money. Funny how the mind works in segments and spaces.

Love,
Betty

Betty -yah, but it's a lot less work to toss up a post than to wrestle down a whole book.

Dear LC,
You are right. I suppose that I have never really looked at it from your perspective. I do not think a lot of us have. We blab on and are happy with our blabbing.
I have started the new book.

Love,
Betty

A Myth in Action has been out for three years now, and has averaged about 150 per year, according to the royalty checks. That would not include the books I bought for a book signing, and later for the Audie Murphy conventions I participated in in '07 and '08. It sold better during its second year, not so well last year with the "buy" button on Amazon down, and the price up, although when I checked in a couple of weeks ago, it was ranked #9 among PA books, briefly. That was the highest its rank had ever been. It sells mostly online, and right now, the problem seems to be with B&N.

It has a limited market, selling mostly to Audie Murphy fans and collectors. A few Joseph Cmpbell fans have bought it as well (It's listed as a resource on the Joseph Campbell Wikipeda page.) so I'm satisfied with the online sales.

If I were more aggressive with marketing, it would be doing better here in SA. But that's my bad.

Ann

In the UK my book sales total around 35,000 copies a year (it fluctuates a bit year to year). I don’t have the figures for all overseas markets but these are additional and in some years, some territories sell in the thousands (e.g. US, Australia and India). Some of my books have been translated into other major languages Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, French for example (and some minor languages Latvian, Polish, Romanian) but I don’t receive sales figures for these markets. My best selling book currently sells around 6,000 copies a year. So far five titles have exceeded life sales of 50,000 one or two (of these five) have exceeded life sales of 100,000.

I visited your website and checked out your books. Did your first book contain research from your doctoral thesis?

Very cool, Mike, ! No wonder you can live off your royalties. Me, I'm happy with side money; I don't have as many books in me as you do. Think I'll call it quits after one or two more.

Shelagh, none of my books report my post grad work (if they did sales would be minuscule). I did not finish my doctorate. It was before the internet and I found myself quite alone with my thoughts. I wrote a paper that was quite well received and along came an offer of consultancy. I ended up in various Dept of the UK Civil Service as a consultant and that and subsequent experience informs the books.

LC, I have 17 in print and commissions for three more (my website is not up to date in terms of titles). Writing new editions and moving new titles forward is a fulltime job. It pays about the same as a school teacher but it allows us to move around and live in some fabulous places.

I have a few ‘off my subject’ book ideas and have promised myself that I will find the time to write them. At the moment family life and writing commitments don’t leave time for much else.

Thanks for the kind words.

Hi

Thanks for all the comments and answers - I'll plug on and see what happens.

Ian

Dear Ian,
That is what I do, too. I wish you every good thing coming your way.

Love,
Betty

4/20/2010


Ian...

Your book sounds like a true
winner , I wish you all the luck..


Cheers..Joe