Royal Bummer!

[Reece10]

Hey Everyone,

If you thought celebrity status guarantees a book release as a winner think again!

In today's Daily Mail in the UK it states that Sarah Ferguson A.K.A. the Duchess of York released her 4th picture book via Simon & Schuster on January 25th 2010.

According to the respected Nielsen BookScan figures, widely used throughout the publishing industry that collects data from 33,500 bookshops worldwide.

Her book has sold just 159 copies!

Is rejection better than international humiliation?

Reece

[Shakesbear]

Hey Everyone,

If you thought celebrity status guarantees a book release as a winner think again!

In today's Daily Mail in the UK it states that Sarah Ferguson A.K.A. the Duchess of Wales released her 4th picture book via Simon & Schuster on January 25th 2010.

According to the respected Nielsen BookScan figures, widely used throughout the publishing industry that collects data from 33,500 bookshops worldwide.

Her book has sold just 159 copies!

Reece

Hi Reece - she is the Duchess of York. 159 copies in just over two weeks - not a lot compared to some but at least they are selling!

[ctripp]

That WOULD be worse Reece!!! 159 in 2 weeks for even an unknown would be dismal but for a "celeb" with what is assumed an instant amount of sales right out of the gate... ACK!
I imagine the publisher is freaking out too, they would most likely have expected sales in the 5 figures after the first two weeks. Sales don't often get better as time goes on. (kind of like the first week of a movie premier tells the tale and it goes straight to DVD if it's not pulling in the crowds)
I assume they published in the US at the same time as the UK?

[MsJudy]

Seriously? 159?

Yeah, I'd rather get rejected by agents and editors than by the public.

[Torgo]

Are these sell-through figures or sell-in? Also, which book is it? I can't find anything coming out in January, and her last picture book was in August 2009.

159 copies sold through in two weeks, for a picture book, is not too shabby. Keep it up over the course of a year and it's over 4,000 copies - not amazing, but not a disaster.

[ctripp]

I think that number would be viewed as a disaster to a publisher the size of S&S Torgo.
Even a relatively small publisher with a new/unknown author and illustrator would be none too pleased to only sell 4000 in a full year though for a tiny press with a very small run, they might not panic after just 2 weeks at the 159 number (wouldn't be happy though, would be starting to bit their nails:)
S&S would most likely do a huge print run of any book but especially a book written by a known author with a track record. I would take a guess at nothing under 30,000 copies (more likely 50,000? Does anyone know average runs for large publishers?) I don't know, that is probably way too low but if only 4000 of them sold in a year, it would be a huge loss.
I can't find out anything about a new book released in January either, just the "little red" books, last one out in August of 09. Did the article mention a book title Reece?

[ctripp]

OK, looked up the article in the UK's Daily Mail and that is the sales figure for the UK only from the sound of it and it is for the latest "little Red" book that was released in August 09. It has to have sold better then that in the US/Canada and internationally in the past almost 6 months (at least I would hope so)

[abctriplets]

Well, if you're talking about Little Red's Autumn Adventure, at amazon it's #868,514 in books.

[Torgo]

I think that number would be viewed as a disaster to a publisher the size of S&S Torgo.
Even a relatively small publisher with a new/unknown author and illustrator would be none too pleased to only sell 4000 in a full year though for a tiny press with a very small run, they might not panic after just 2 weeks at the 159 number (wouldn't be happy though, would be starting to bit their nails:)
S&S would most likely do a huge print run of any book but especially a book written by a known author with a track record. I would take a guess at nothing under 30,000 copies (more likely 50,000? Does anyone know average runs for large publishers?) I don't know, that is probably way too low but if only 4000 of them sold in a year, it would be a huge loss.


Ah, but we're talking about the UK, not the US. 4000 copies a year would be a disaster for S&S US, yes, but not this side of the pond. We're a very different (=smaller) market. I couldn't really guess at an average run across the industry but 10K for the UK trade would be pretty bullish.

I work in picture books for a major UK house and I wouldn't want to sell 159 copies in the first week of publication, either - that does sound wretched - but 159 copies in a very difficult Jan/Feb, 6 months after pub is really not that bad. Not particularly good, but not that bad. So I think maybe the Daily Hate Mail is being disingenuous.

[kellion92]

That's depressing for other PB writers, but very unsurprising. I doubt in the U.S. at least that Sarah Ferguson would get much leeway due to her celebrity status. A) Her books seem to be pretty bad although I haven't seen any B) they seem pretty specifically British C) most parents under age 35 would have only a dim idea who she was and D) if they did, her lingering celebrity status is very tabloidy and more related to toe-sucking and Weight Watchers ads.

[Torgo]

Ah - found the article (had to soil my browser with the Daily Mail) and discovered this:

But according to the respected Nielsen BookScan figures, widely used throughout the publishing industry, it had sold just 159 copies up to January 25.

So not 159 copies in a few weeks - that's 159 copies since publication in August last year.

That is a disaster. The marketeers are spinning as hard as they can:

"The fact of the matter is that the BookScan figures won't be a complete picture of the UK book market, particularly for children's picture books where strong sales are seen via independents, library and educational supply and book clubs. "

Heh. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

[Jamesaritchie]

I don't know how many copies have sold, and neither does anyone else who goes by Nielson or Amazon. There is no way of determining sales by these two methods alone. You can't even come close.

I do know both Little Red and Ruby topped the U.S. bestseller lists for a time, and that takes a bunch of sales. These books, too, were said not to be selling well at all, which was, of course, complete nonsense.

Anyone, newspaper, magazine, or whatever, who goes by Nielson or Amazon numbers alone is either completely ignorant of how sales are actually counted, or they're intentionally trying to write sensational article to draw attention to themselves, or to make the subject of that article look bad.

Never believe anything you read, and only half of what you see is particularly good advice when dealing with any article of this type.

There's no spinning being done here, there's only a lot of ignorance and/or bad intentions.

[abctriplets]

Never believe anything you read, and only half of what you see

So....I shouldn't believe your post then? :)

[mware01]

A few years a go I had a tech manual that sat around 900,000 That's like 15 copies a month (or was then). It was used at several tech colleges and at the beginning of each semester the sales rank would jump to about 50,000 (if I recall).

So, 868,514, can't be more than a couple dozen copies a month, but that's just on Amazon.

Well, if you're talking about Little Red's Autumn Adventure, at amazon it's #868,514 in books.

[ctripp]

Torgo, I know what your saying about sales outside of the US being smaller. I'm published here in Canada (I don't know if you can GET smaller then that:) with distribution to the US. Sales expectations for Canadian publishers are certainly far different then those of any of the US publishers but wow, even one of our commercial presses would be devistated with less then 200 hard cover pic books sold in 6 months. I mean, that wouldn't cover the Illustrators advance... certainly not someone the likes of the wonderful Sam Williams! The books are sold by S&S US though (as far as I can tell on the main S&S site) so, being a series the publisher in both the UK and US are investing in, I really do think you might be right, the books are selling far better then the ratings show and the paper is being, shall we say, a wee bit mean about it all:)

[Torgo]

Yeah, the OP said 159 books in two weeks, which I said is not terrible; actually it turns out to be 159 books since last August, which I think is terrible. I know what Jamesaritchie is saying about not being able to take Nielsen as being the whole picture, but the UK market is dominated by chains that report sales via TCM; if you're doing poorly on the TCM figures, it's very unlikely - in my experience anyway - that the whole picture is any rosier. The Mail is being mean about it, because that's their whole schtick, but I don't think they are too wide of the mark this time.

[ctripp]

but I don't think they are too wide of the mark this time

Then that would be a very sad situation for both the author and illustrator (not to mention S&S UK.
I wonder if the sales are much better in the US though. The American public seemed to have gone nuts over Sarah years back (in fact UK royalty in general) I don't know if the love affair continues to this day or if it extends to her books but I hate seeing any picture books do badly (even if they aren't mine:)
Thanks for posting this Reece, very interesting to learn what goes on "across the pond and beyond"!

[shaldna]

How well do picture books sell in general? I have no idea.

Celebrity picture books don't tend to do well, Katie Price's most recent Pirates PB only sold 17 copies.

(if you don't know who Katie Price is then consider yourself very very lucky)

[Torgo]

@Shaldna: Just some random stats that might give a bit of a steer: in the week ending 16th of Feb, TCM figures show the top 50 picture books sold 93,000 copies in the UK. The bestseller was Stick Man (Donaldson/Scheffler) with a whopping Gruffalo-sized 4,123 copies sold; no. 50 was Puff the Magic Dragon with 1,224 (still relatively huge.)

Now actually around half of the top 50 are licensed and character books - Disney Princesses, Thomas the Tank Engine stuff etc - and there are also a lot of hardy perennials like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are. So to break into this list with a new picture book, you need to have a pretty big hit on your hands.

I have books on the backlist ticking over quite nicely at around 200 copies per month; enough to make it profitable to keep reprinting.

[shaldna]

I have books on the backlist ticking over quite nicely at around 200 copies per month; enough to make it profitable to keep reprinting.


It's a shame they don't sell better, given all teh work that goes into producing them

[Torgo]

So get out there and start buying picture books, everyone!

[kellion92]

I buy a lot of picture books. Unfortunately, too many of them are licensed character books -- that's what my little girls run to at the bookstore, and they're only $3.99 paper instead of $16.99 hardcover. Sigh. I would work harder to steer the munchkins towards more creative books if they were available at a lower price.

[Torgo]

Kellion, they don't have paperback editions of those hardbacks? I always had the impression that in the USA it's mostly about hardbacks, but is it entirely about hardbacks, in fact? That must make things difficult.

[shaldna]

I think the price is a big issue as is availability. for instance, you can get disney character books in Asda at teh bottom of my road for £2, but if I want to buy my toddler Where the Wild things Are then I have to travel 7 miles into Belfast and pay £8 for it.

[Torgo]

Price is an issue that's never really going to go away (although you can get WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE for £5.99 in paperback, and very handsome it is too) because making picture books is very expensive compared to making, say, B-format fiction. But availability, yes - there's only one big book chain in the UK and if their central buyer doesn't like a book, it's not getting racked. I think Sainsburys now does some good kids picture books (i.e. not a bunch of Disney Princess crap?)

I recently saw a piece of research into the current picture book buying habits and it made grim reading. Reviews and word of mouth made zero impact on sales, at least when compared to price - £3.99 was the ceiling, basically, which cuts most of our stuff off at the knees. And people don't buy books as gifts at the moment - the market is restricted to parents only, the grandparents / friends etc aren't buying anything.

[shaldna]

It's such a shame really. My daughter is crazy about books, but some of her books are more expensive than mine. but they are so pretty.