Is 5,000 a lot of books?

A quick post on book sales

Sculpture by Alicia Martin

When I attended an MFA program (a little over a decade ago [insert old man emoji]), I was told that for literary fiction you needed to sell 5,000 books to be considered a success. This didn’t mean you’d be rich of course. Didn’t mean you’d win a prize or get a TV adaptation. It probably didn’t even mean you’d get royalties. But…