Are the sales listed at Publishing Marketplace a vast underestimate?

Procrastinista said:

Part of the reason I'm asking is that if an agent has twenty clients and sells only five books per year, I'd say that's a bad sign. One would think at least 15 of their clients have written a book that year and for only five books to have been sold seems quite low. But if the sales listed at PM are a big underestimate of sales, then I shouldn't read too much into the stats.

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In my experience, the agents who bother to list sales at all on PM will usually list all their sales.

So while it's not a great indicator for overall sales in publishing, it's a good indicator for the agents who do bother to list their sales there.

Bear in mind this is a very rough time in publishing. 5 sales for 20 listed clients in the last 12 months isn't that bad at all.

Consider also that a handful of those 20 authors may not be fast writers; they may only have one book every five years, and therefore just had nothing to sell that year. Or maybe they're right in the middle of writing a magnum opus. Maybe one author's whole family died in a fire and they weren't able to write anything at all that year. Maybe another handful had books that just didn't sell, through no fault of the author or agent.

Or maybe some of the agent's 20 clients are really huge sellers that make the agent a lot of money, and they don't need to make a bajillion sales per year. There are lots of factors behind those sales stats, and 5 sales for 20 clients isn't bad anyway.

Also, if the agent made a multi-book deal for some of those writers in previous years -- which is likely, considering how many deals are multi-book deals -- those authors are likely to be working on those contacted books for the next one/two/three years.

Basically, without further info, it's hard to say anything based on numbers like those. It could go either way.

My guess is that the figures are inaccurate as hell for total figures. Self-reported figures involving marketing are usually done for a reason, and you have to think through the reasoning.

I know a new car dealership that advertises that it makes over one million dollars in sales every month. Pretty big volume to move a million dollars worth of new cars a month, isn't it? Or is it? Actual breakdown of its sales is about $350k in new cars, $350k in used cars, and $300k in parts. And if sales are down in a month, a whole bunch of used cars are sent to auction to ramp up the figures. But by advertising over one million dollars in sales a month, it looks higher volume than it actually is.

People respond to this sort of stuff, and anyone in marketing knows it. Look at Powerball. To play one set of numbers for an entire year costs $104. So what is the average player win in a year? Based upon a 40% payout, the average player of Powerball wins -$60 a year. And yes, that's the negative in front of the $60. The average Powerball player would lose $60 per year, year in and year out.

So why do people play? Because they might win millions!

This is all basic psychology. Let's think about it from the point of view of an agent.

A beginning agent wants to show lots of sales. For a beginning agent, you want to list all those four figure sales. At this point in the agent's career, you want to show you're a player.

But after a few years, the agent starts getting some bigger sales, some five figure and maybe even a six figure. Let's say an agent does twenty deals, 1 six-figure, 2 five-figure, and the rest four-figure (17). If you were an agent, what would you put in PM? Would you list all those four-figure sales? Or would you list your six and five figure, and maybe half of your four-figure.

And then a few years later, what would you want to list? If you're now known as a top agent, how much would you want to list a four-figure deal?

Further, some deals are multi-book deals, and you only announce the first one.

Publishing Marketplace is a good resource, but any self-reported sales figure has to always be taken with at least some salt. Some with a lot of salt. Listing sales figures for an agent is a marketing tool. It shows writers who is who, but it also shows editors. My guess is only a very few agents list all of their sales, and probably only for a short period in their career.

Also be aware that some writers probably don't want to be listed, and some editors as well.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

I'm more concerned with the names on an agent's client list that on total sales numbers. Sales numbers can be highly deceiving. Holding on to good writers is not.

That's a good point Jamesaritchie. It's true. When searching for agents if there's names i know and like on their list I prefer them over others, no matter what is reported on their sales for that year.

Agents who make large deals regularly might also not want to post those, either at the request of their authors ("So I heard you got a six-figure deal last month. I'm a little short on cash...") Or because the agent doesn't want an absolute flood of queries.

How prolific are each of the writers? How happy are the writers with their agent? If the writers are happy, many times they have interviews on their blogs, they'll follow their agent on twitter and exchange tweets etc. When you talk with the agent, are they willing to let you talk to clients? Do so! Also check out the threads here, lots of times clients post in their agents' threads and this is really a great help. Ask them how long they have had some of their clients, and maybe when you go to certain clients sites see if you can dig up this sort of info.

I agree that sales can be misleading. # of sales doesn't neccessarily mean great agent. Happy clients mean a good agent. Long-term clients mean a good agent. GOOD MATCH FOR YOU means a good agent, and that one you won't know until the phone call.

One thing you might also do is try and look at their clients twitter/blogs to see if they talk at all about their agent or working relationship. I've seen mention even on this board from (just to name a few here) Kelly Meding, Stacia Kane, and Hannah Moskowitz in regards to their agents and how great the relationship is. I know I've seen several more talk about theirs too. My own agent has happy clients who often post complimentary mentions on twitter about him, and for very good reason.

It does take some digging. It also depends on the type of agent you want and how much contact and editorial input you are looking for. All these things are a big factor. Plus there is a personality mix and whether you are going to be able to work together or not.

Try Querytracker.net! It's a writer's BFF!