Shocking article about sales...

blacbird said:

Lulu is now offering free ISBNs?

caw

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Yes, but they retain ownership, which is weird, but, I suppose, manageable.

ChaosTitan said:

Because some folks seem to delight in forecasting the imminent demise of publishing as we know it?

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It sure seems that way. But Napoleon may have explained it when he said, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

Well, bugger me with a prize winning cucumber. The Mail having a misleading slant to a non-story?

Whatever next?

The number is misleading--and also old news. Miss Snark talked about Bookscan's numbers on her blog. Short version: It tracks ISBN numbers, not books, and each time a book comes in a new variation like being released to paperback, it has a new ISBN number. It doesn't track sales to libraries or book clubs, or even Wal-Mart.

Linda Adams said:

The number is misleading--and also old news. Miss Snark talked about Bookscan's numbers on her blog. Short version: It tracks ISBN numbers, not books, and each time a book comes in a new variation like being released to paperback, it has a new ISBN number. It doesn't track sales to libraries or book clubs, or even Wal-Mart.

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This may be a dumb question, but if Bookscan is so unreliable (even by their own admission) then what purpose does their service serve?

Who, besides sensational journalists, would use such unreliable or misleading facts?

Tedium said:

This may be a dumb question, but if Bookscan is so unreliable (even by their own admission) then what purpose does their service serve?

Who, besides sensational journalists, would use such unreliable or misleading facts?

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The numbers aren't very good for making sweeping, generalized statements (sort of like the article). But booksellers and publishers can use the numbers to track sales of specific items in the market--they just have to remember the numbers aren't a complete tally of all product sold.

Tedium said:

This may be a dumb question, but if Bookscan is so unreliable (even by their own admission) then what purpose does their service serve?

Who, besides sensational journalists, would use such unreliable or misleading facts?

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Bookscan is not unreliable, when used correctly. If you use Bookscan to look at specific books, you can get a reliable estimate of sales, even though bookscan only reports certain sales from certain places.

Bookscan is also very good if publisher A wants to compare sales of a certian type of book within a given line to sales of similar books from publisher B or C or D.

It's when you use the raw numbers to get averages that Bookscan is worthless, as it has to be.