Sales Figures

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killerkellerh

Howdy.

I am curious about what constitutes a "successful novel" in terms of sales. Does anyone know?

For those of you who have been published, how many sales have you had on your book or paticular books. I have heard things in the past that I want to confirm.

thanks,

keller
reno
 

killerkellerh

No one on this board knows how many books they have sold or how many books a mid level author has sold? I thinking of authors like:

Ridley Pearson
Jack Du Brul
Barry Eisler
ect, ect...not necessarily household names, but published authors.

Any info would be appreciated.

10,000 copies?
20,000 Copies?
100,000 Copies?

Thanks,

keller
 

Gala

Knowledge

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>No one on this board knows how many books they have sold...<hr></blockquote>

or maybe they figure it's nobody's bees wax.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>how many books a mid level author has sold?<hr></blockquote>

no time to look it up.

Good luck.
 

cherilnc

Re: Knowledge

I MAY have a phone number that you can call to get sales on a title...I'm not sure. But it's at home and I'd have to flip through a book to get it.

I'm not sure but if I do I'll post it.

If I forget, email [email protected]
 

Jamesaritchie

sales

I think we all know how many books we've sold, but while I can't speak for anyone else, that's definitely info I don't hand out easily. This isn't because of sales numbers, but because of income numbers.

What makes a successful book isn't as easy as sales numbers, anyway. The first measure of success is does the book earn back its advance? Obviously, a book that receives a ten grand advance is going to be considered successful with far fewer sales than a book that received a one hundred grand advance.

It also depends on genre, and expectations for a novel in that genre. And it depends on the publisher.

Your novel is successful to a degree if it pays off the advance, but the main thing is simply whether or not the publisher keeps asking for more novels.
 

bfdc

Re: sales

One sale would be successful.

Not successful enough? How much money do you need to make from the book? How much money do you get from the sale of each book? Divide the former from the latter, and you will have the number of books required to be successful.

Sorry about the smart-aleck answer. But the question is relative to how one views success.

For me, if I can sell 25,000 copies of my book (which is set for publication this October), then I will be happy, at least until I do my taxes.

Bob/bfdc
 

vstrauss

Asking authors about sales figures is like asking some people about their weight or shoe size. It's very personal and potentially embarrassing information, and writers are often reluctant to give it out, even to other writers.

Success (in the commercial sense--not talking about personal expectations here) depends a lot on context and publisher expectation. If your publisher prints 50,000 copies and your book only sells 20,000, you might be in trouble when it comes to persuading the publisher to take you on for another book. If, on the other hand, the publisher printed 10,000 and then had to go back to press for several thousand more, the publisher might be pleased enough to give you a nice deal on a followup book, because you exceeded expectations. A new author published for the first time in mass market paperback might be considered to have done pretty well with sales of 20,000 (assuming a decent sell-through), while for an established author whose sales have been dropping over a few books, that same 20,000 might be disastrous.

The above is highly simplified, but you can see how much "success" depends on context.

I'll bare my soul here and reveal that my last mass market paperback ("The Garden of the Stone") sold around 15,000 copies, and had a sell-through of 70%. 15,000 isn't a huge number, but the sell-through is quite a bit better than average for sf/fantasy.

- Victoria

P.S. I guess I should define sell-through--it's the ratio of books sold to books printed. So a book that had a print run of 20,000 and sold 10,000 would have a sell-through of 50%.
 

cherilnc

Re: sales

Well the number that I have is now unasigned. It was an automated sales line at Ingram where you'd just punch in a books ISBN number.

I'm referring to an older edition of "The Self-Publishing Manual" by Dan Poynter, I'm sure the latest one would have the correct number.


I don't put numbers out personally but I think the others explained why. Good luck.
 

killerkellerh

Victoria,

Thank you so much for your explaination and honesty. Your answer was exactly what I was looking for.

I had heard in the past that a self published book of 5000 sales can catch the eye of a major publisher, and i think what you stated fits in line with what I heard.

To Everyone else, I am sorry to invade your privacy...I never intended to get "personal" or to get philosophical. I completely understand that there are many factors that constitue a successful novel including advances, promotion, sell-through, etc. I was just curious and trying to verify some of what I heard from an different source.

Thanks,

keller
 

vstrauss

I've seen 5,000 given as a figure also, though some self-pubbed books that have been picked up by major houses haven't sold quite that many. The book would also have to accumulate those sales numbers over a relatively short period of time--say, within 6-12 months of release.

- Victoria
 

arainsb123

And there's always the hope among self-published authors that their book will be the next Eragon.
 
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