Bookscan / sales numbers / rude awakening

eruthford

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About three months ago, Publishers Marketplace offered a service where you could pay $25 a month and read the NPD Bookscan and NPD Pubtrack sales numbers for books. Today I actually paid the money and ran reports on the books I most want my book to be like and was shocked by the results. So I'm posting here to see if this is reality or if maybe Bookscan and Pubtrack left some stuff out.

Ok, first book was BRAIN ON FIRE, a 2013 memoir that spent a good amount of time on bestseller lists, Bookscan has 611,805 and Pubtrack has 256,123. Those are numbers since release, and they seemed like what I'd expect.

Then I went for JUNIPER: THE GIRL WHO WAS BORN TOO SOON, a 2016 memoir by two authors who got NPR's Radiolab to do a big piece on their topic. They're both Pulitzer-level authors, one won a Pulitzer, the other was a finalist. And they got 5,880 from Bookscan and 7,611 from Pubtrack since release. And they had a top New York agent repping them, Jane Dystel.

And then I ran a report for LONG HAUL: A TRUCKER'S TALES OF LIFE ON THE ROAD, a 2018 memoir, reviewed in the New York Times, and the author did an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. And his numbers were 10,478 and 11,030 since release.

So my jaw-drop moment is: 13,000 copies for a well-reviewed memoir from authors with lots of platform? 21,000 copies for another one like that? (This is the first time I've ever seen data like this.)

I'm not expecting to make JK Rowling money or anything, but do these numbers seem reasonable? Is this was happens when you sell a book that's well-reviewed but doesn't become the "toast of the town?"
 

cool pop

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Do you mean the numbers are lower than you'd expect? First, I'd caution against these types of sites. The only real way to know how much a book sold is if you saw the royalty statements. Sites aren't 100% accurate. I might be wrong (been a while since I've been in trade publishing) but doesn't the pub have to report to these sites? If so then that really skews what's going on because the pubs might not report every sale or just a percentage. That's a possibility. Secondly, the numbers you mention aren't anything to sneeze at because it's hard to sell books even with a big publisher and renown reviews. I do admit I would think the numbers would be higher with platforms in nonfiction but as I said, we can't be sure of the actual numbers.

As for what to expect, it's best to have low expectations so you're not set up for failure. Most books don't sell well and many don't even crack three figures. Fiction is even worse than nonfiction. That's the reality. This is a hard, hard industry.

So there is a lot to consider. One, we can't be sure how accurate these numbers are. Two, it doesn't matter who publishes a book, what platform the author has, or who reviewed the book if people don't buy it. Having a New York Times review, Pulitzer Prize, big time agent, or interview on NPR does not guarantee sales. Nothing does. Books don't sell all the time. Many books get big pushes and turn out to be duds. This is why good authors often find themselves dropped from their pubs and agents by no fault of their own. Many, many good books and good writers flop. If we all knew why or could pinpoint what made books sell everyone would have a bestseller. Pubs and agents have no idea what will sell all they can do is guess (and hope) but can never know for sure.

Promotion is simply getting the word out. After that it's up to the readers. You can have the biggest push in the world but doesn't mean readers will buy the book.

That's the reality of the publishing world. It's always been like this and always will be.
 
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Marissa D

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Everything that coolpop said (she is wise.) Really, even books with Big Five backing and some media attention often just don't sell much. I don't know what the current figure is, but last I heard, far fewer than half of trade published books even earn out their advances.
 

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About three months ago, Publishers Marketplace offered a service where you could pay $25 a month and read the NPD Bookscan and NPD Pubtrack sales numbers for books. Today I actually paid the money and ran reports on the books I most want my book to be like and was shocked by the results. So I'm posting here to see if this is reality or if maybe Bookscan and Pubtrack left some stuff out.

Ok, first book was BRAIN ON FIRE, a 2013 memoir that spent a good amount of time on bestseller lists, Bookscan has 611,805 and Pubtrack has 256,123. Those are numbers since release, and they seemed like what I'd expect.

Then I went for JUNIPER: THE GIRL WHO WAS BORN TOO SOON, a 2016 memoir by two authors who got NPR's Radiolab to do a big piece on their topic. They're both Pulitzer-level authors, one won a Pulitzer, the other was a finalist. And they got 5,880 from Bookscan and 7,611 from Pubtrack since release. And they had a top New York agent repping them, Jane Dystel.

And then I ran a report for LONG HAUL: A TRUCKER'S TALES OF LIFE ON THE ROAD, a 2018 memoir, reviewed in the New York Times, and the author did an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. And his numbers were 10,478 and 11,030 since release.

So my jaw-drop moment is: 13,000 copies for a well-reviewed memoir from authors with lots of platform? 21,000 copies for another one like that? (This is the first time I've ever seen data like this.)

I'm not expecting to make JK Rowling money or anything, but do these numbers seem reasonable? Is this was happens when you sell a book that's well-reviewed but doesn't become the "toast of the town?"

Aside from the above qualification, you're conflating things because they're in the same general category, but they're not the same, imo.

I heard the Radiolab about Juniper. I had no interest in reading the book, for a couple of reasons. First, I got the whole story from the Radiolab, it seemed; second, it's not particularly interesting, in that it'd be something I'd want to read about. I get it, but... I get it?

The Brain on Fire woman I saw interviewed on some tv thing and thought, 'dang.' I didn't read that one either, but if you put both in front of me, that's absolutely the one I'd pick up.

Most people have a brain, and can imagine bizarre things occurring. Medical mysteries is a column in the Times, it's a tv show in and of itself, it's a thing that people across a lot of demographics are fascinated by. Preemies is a more specific audience, I'd wager. There are people who wouldn't want to read either one, but I think the potential of offputting is higher for Juniper. There are people who would be against the level of intervention, and a lot more people who don't want to read about things they might imagine happening to their own kids. It's the Marley & Me problem -- I won't watch that movie because I know it doesn't end well. I still haven't watched March of the Penguins because I know something bad happens.

Juniper doesn't bother me in that way, but there are certainly people for whom it does.

Also, good reviews and being on a nerdy-ass NPR program (Radiolab is my fave podcast; I'm not being perjorative, but it's not something that has particularly broad appeal, like whatever hour of the Today show or whatever I saw the other woman on. ) doesn't necessarily translate to good numbers.

Because regardless, stuff just has to hit, at that magic time and in a magical way that makes one thing take off and another sit on the shelf.
 

eruthford

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Do you mean the numbers are lower than you'd expect?

Yes, I'd thought the well-reviewed-but-not-lightning books would be more up in the 100,000-200,000 range.

First, I'd caution against these types of sites. The only real way to know how much a book sold is if you saw the royalty statements. Sites aren't 100% accurate.

Yeah, I only paid for one month. But the reason I was doing this was to find a "role model" book, one in my genre that had sold well, and then pitch it to agents as similar to that book that sold well.

As for what to expect, it's best to have low expectations so you're not set up for failure. Most books don't sell well and many don't even crack three figures. Fiction is even worse than nonfiction. That's the reality. This is a hard, hard industry.

Other related questions: From the agent's perspective and the publisher's perspective, how many copies would they need to sell to basically break even on their investment? For your average agent, what do you think their pattern is of duds per good seller in their portfolios?
 

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Good-enough sales are going to vary from book to book, and will also differ a bit by genre. But those numbers don't sound out of line to me. I know one hard number from my own genre: John Scalzi said once that Redshirts (a bestseller) sold 20,000 hardcovers in its first year.

Past that - Bookscan isn't accurate on its own. I had various folks in publishing tell me they estimate Bookscan numbers at 40-60% of physical book sales.

For your individual career, though, what matters is how a book sells based on publisher expectations, and that's a conversation you want to have with them. They don't expect every book to be Harry Potter, but they do have numbers in mind.
 

cornflake

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Yes, I'd thought the well-reviewed-but-not-lightning books would be more up in the 100,000-200,000 range.

Oh my do they wish. In a general sense, not related to the specific books you mentioned.

Other related questions: From the agent's perspective and the publisher's perspective, how many copies would they need to sell to basically break even on their investment? For your average agent, what do you think their pattern is of duds per good seller in their portfolios?

That entirely depends on numbers specific to the project -- the advance, marketing budget, etc., etc.
 

eruthford

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Update: I wrote the Publishers Marketplace customer service people to ask about the accuracy of the data, and here's what they wrote back:

The simple answer is that yes, this is your awakening.

Bookscan has the same level of accuracy/coverage for all mainstream books sold in conventional outlets. (E.g. it's a full data capture of sales at Amazon, BN, Wal-mart, etc., covering roughly 80 to 85 percent of trade sales.) The biggest gaps will be for titles that have particular strength in unusual places (specialized markets; special sales; etc.) In the grand scheme of things, reviews and previous prizes or nominations matter very little to sales, and most books sell quite modestly.

So I guess that is the answer. Still, I am shocked by the massive swing between a "bestseller" and "modest sales" and it's going to take me a long time to get over it.
 

Marissa D

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Other related questions: From the agent's perspective and the publisher's perspective, how many copies would they need to sell to basically break even on their investment?

When a book is being discussed for acquisition, the editor will do a "P&L" for it--a Profit and Loss spreadsheet where they take into consideration all the costs versus the projected profits from it, in order to figure that very thing out--and if they don't feel they will make a profit, the book is not likely to be acquired.
 

Richard White

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And also remember, an author not "earning out" their advance does NOT mean the publisher didn't make money on the book. The publisher breaks even long before the author does. Otherwise, publishers would go out of business very quickly.
 

cool pop

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Everything that coolpop said (she is wise.) Really, even books with Big Five backing and some media attention often just don't sell much. I don't know what the current figure is, but last I heard, far fewer than half of trade published books even earn out their advances.

Marissa, stop now. Making me blush. LOL! You're a sweetheart. I just try to share advice and help if I can.
 

cool pop

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Update: I wrote the Publishers Marketplace customer service people to ask about the accuracy of the data, and here's what they wrote back:



So I guess that is the answer. Still, I am shocked by the massive swing between a "bestseller" and "modest sales" and it's going to take me a long time to get over it.

Welcome to the real writing world where many authors are working 9-5 to support themselves on minimum wage while following their dreams. ;) It's not like TV makes it seem where you write one book and it ends up a massive bestseller. I have several friends who made the NYT lists and USA Today lists and all of them are still working the same jobs they had and even worse, their following books didn't even sell as well as those that made the lists. Some even got dropped by their pubs because they couldn't mimic the sales they did before. Being on lists didn't help them down the line. Yes, it's cool to say you made the list of course but in terms of career-changing, it's not for many authors. THIS right here is the reality. Most writers are making nothing from their work but the thing is, if you love writing, truly love it, none of that matters. You have to have a massive seller like Fifty Shades or Hunger Games for your life to change. That is very, very rare and no one can make that happen but readers. But, you can make a comfortable living as a writer. Many authors do but aren't rich or anything.

But does that matter? If none of this really matters and you just love writing then write and be merry. But if you want fame and fortune, I'd go do something else. :tongue
 
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lizmonster

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It's not like TV makes it seem where you write one book and it ends up a massive bestseller.

Can I just say I've never seen a writer's life portrayed accurately in the entertainment media?

If none of this really matters and you just love writing then write and be merry. But if you want fame and fortune, I'd go do something else. :tongue

Yeah. If I wanted actual money I'd go back to software. :)
 

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Nielsen Bookscan only counts the sales it counts. Lots of sales aren't included (some book clubs, for example; some supermarket sales; library sales). And don't forget that the figures you get tend to be for specific ISBNs, and one book can have several of those--one for the hardback edition, one for mass market paperback, another for a new edition which was brought out to celebrate something or other... so it's tricky working out what a book has sold by relying on Nielsen on its own.

Having said that, it's astonishing how low some books' sales are. Books which are widely reviewed, and celebrated, sometimes do only sell a few thousand. It could be because the publisher doesn't have good distribution, or because they only printed a few thousand and weren't positioned to take advantage of viral publicity when it happened. So much depends on the genres of the books concerned.
 

lizmonster

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Having said that, it's astonishing how low some books' sales are. Books which are widely reviewed, and celebrated, sometimes do only sell a few thousand. It could be because the publisher doesn't have good distribution, or because they only printed a few thousand and weren't positioned to take advantage of viral publicity when it happened. So much depends on the genres of the books concerned.

People sometimes get annoyed when I talk about how much luck there is in publishing, because surely it's about the blood, sweat, and tears that go into producing a truly good book. And yeah, it is - and once you've done that, there's a massive amount of luck involved.

(And yes, I know "luck" is often how well individual departments at a particular publisher manage what they're doing, but even when they do well, some books catch and some books don't and that's just the way of the world.)
 

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Bookscan (as viewed via Author Central) records less than half of my sales (as seen on royalty statements). But library and school sales are big in YA, so that’s true of most MG/YA authors.

Here’s an essay by a well-platformed author whose memoir got lots of attention (I read it!) and still sold poorly. And by poorly I mean “a few thousand” (he doesn’t specify further).

(ETA: I was just reading the author’s blog, and he specifies he sold 5,000 copies of that memoir in the first few months, a number that shocked him at the time but sounds just fine to him now that he’s self-publishing. Honestly, it sounds pretty okay to me, too! Expectations change.)

https://artplusmarketing.com/i-have...-not-make-money-by-writing-books-8ea5fd99492a

And here’s a useful article about book sales generally, though I think it focuses on fiction. It suggests that sales of less than 5k are not unusual for acclaimed debut literary novels that haven’t won a major award.

https://electricliterature.com/ever...know-about-book-sales-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

Otherwise, just seconding what others are saying here. Many good books don’t sell well. It is hard, hard, hard to sell books. As far as comps go, I don’t think you necessarily need a mega-bestseller, unless it really feels like the most accurate comparison.
 
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