I was suggesting it more so that we could avoid having the same arguments here but also because I thought it would be helpful for people to see the issues we've mentioned in the past.
As for not reporting, I'm just wondering. I'm not saying it should be one way or the other. I had two thoughts, personally. One was that many of the people you mentioned are among the top sellers and I thought it might be intimidating. A little like saying, "Share your sales data. Btw, Stephen King sold 350,000 books last month!"
Not the best example, but the sort of thing that might discourage people from joining in the conversation, especially if they feel that they're expected to get similar numbers. I've seen a similar effect in other threads about things like number of queries sent.
My other reason was because it's sometimes difficult to know how accurate the information being reported is when someone else says it. I've heard accusations before of people exaggerating sales to encourage more people to buy, etc. I don't know that there has ever been any proof of that sort of thing, but essentially if people are reporting their own sales then they theoretically are going to know what their numbers are, rather than repeating numbers that other people gave.
I'm kind of highly sensitive to this whole repeating things found on the internet thing at this point because I've been seeing a lot of really crazy stuff being repeated lately, and the two sources that you chose have been shown to be somewhat biased. I don't think you intended for them to be. It's just a matter of being able to judge source material. If we're discussing our own sales then there really isn't room for argument.
That's just my opinion, though. If other people feel that sharing outside sales info helps the conversation then that's fine. I was just mentioning it as a potential consideration.
Katie:
Thank you so much for taking the time to spell out your thoughts on this. As far as your comment that citing the sales numbers of bestselling authors could intimidate other writers into withholding their own sales data, I guess that could happen.
And your comment that self-reporters could fudge their own data -- well, that could happen, too.
But frankly, both problems go with the territory when there's no objective reporting of sales data by an outside party. The only source of sales data for books that we have is the authors themselves. So, yes, I'm aware of the problems of self-reporting, but there's no alternative, is there?
You say that "if people are reporting their own sales then they theoretically are going to know what their numbers are, rather than repeating numbers that other people gave." That's why I didn't paraphrase what Konrath said about his own sales. I didn't want to lay my own interpretation on it. Instead, I gave the link to his blogpost, so you could read his own words for yourself and decide what you thought.
As for the Robin Sullivan post, she does interpret the sales figures of two other writers, so there could be bias her report. But I gave you the link, so you could-- again --read her account of it and decide for yourself.
It appears that, for veterans of this blog, like you, the issues I've raised here are "been there, done that." I can see how it would bore you and others who have lived through the lengthy "arguments" you've alluded to.
But for a newbie like me, it's not old stuff, and there have to be others as well who are still interested in these subjects. It seems like absolutewrite ought to be able to accommodate both the veterans and the newcomers.
It seems natural that some threads will pick up subjects that were hashed over ten months ago and rehash them for a new group of people in a new thread. If someone is bored by that, they have only to avoid that thread. Or am I missing something?
One thing I could do (and probably should have done) is to go over all the threads in Self-Publishing and POD and make sure I know what's in them. Maybe I have idiotically duplicated some other thread that's up and running right now, and if I did, I'm sorry. I'll check for that.
Again, thanks much for your opinions, and I appreciate your courtesy and considerateness as well.
