I'm so happy you wrote this counter-piece. I read @kathleenschmidt's great response to that other post and basically agreed with everything she said, and was hoping for a better breakdown of what was so incredibly off about it—and here you are. It presents to us some of pitfalls of Substack, too, which is that everyone is a reporter(!), and there's no fact-checking(!). There was so much missing context, too, like the fact that book publishing is a giant ecosystem with the Big Five, yes, but also indies, and hybrids, and self-published authors. And what did any of it have to do with people not buying books? I'm a hybrid book publisher, and people are not only buying our books; they're buying books that big houses passed on because the Big Five didn't think these titles had a big enough readership. We are not aspiring to sell even 10,000 copies. That would be awesome, but our average sales are more like 1000-4000 per title, and we are still a $1 million dollar publisher. There is much about book publishing that people do not understand. It takes work to get under the hood. The DOJ didn't get it. And that other piece certainly got it wrong. Grateful for your work, Lincoln!
Thanks for this more nuanced analysis. I’ve been in the business of writing since the 1970s so I can remember the good old days of mass market paperbacks. One of my novels sold 340,000 copies in paperback. That would be considered an astonishing number these days. But of course, back then we didn’t have all the other temptations screaming to tablets to smart phones , etc.
I appreciate your dive into reality-based sales numbers. What disturbed me about that Substack post, though, was the underlying attitude/logic: authors with pre-existing platforms (celebrities, the "queen of TikTok," etc.) are valuable because of those platforms, and authors without pre-existing platforms are a roll of the dice. There's no discussion by any of these publishing execs about *making* books succeed. The CEO of Penguin Random House literally describes his role as that of an angel investor. But he's not an angel investor -- he's the CEO!
I'm not sure what my conclusion is from this. Self-publishing seems even harder to make work especially for literary writers. But it also strikes me as bananas that publishers are so willing to see the failure of their own products as something totally beyond their control. If authors are going to get all the responsibility and blame, they should get a higher percentage of the profits too.
Oh yes, there's certainly a lot about publishing that depresses me. And agree with all that. I will say that I thiiiink that all applies more to nonfiction than fiction. My understanding is it's a lot harder to sell a memoir or essay collection if you don't have a platform, but that's less of a consideration (although not NOT a consideration) for a novel.
Concurring this is true. With fiction, it's about the writing, your connections, and your previous publications (such as magazines/etc). Different kind of author platform.
Great news, but I could have proven this myself, because I know I buy about a billion books a year. These statistics can't include used books (pre-owned) and library borrowing.
Oh they absolutely do not. I mentioned this briefly, but all of the above is NEW book sales in retail markets. Not used book sales or library borrowing... or even sales to libraries, which is a lot of money for authors/publishers.
Thanks for more excellent number crunching, and I'm both surprised and delighted that book sales and movie ticket sales are not far apart. That gives me hope! Likewise, I'm heartened that 50% of books may make money--I've often told students/friends it's much less--but that was my error in equating "making money" and "earning out."
The main thing that struck me about Griffin's article was her baseline assumptions about what # of book sales is OK versus shockingly bad. One of my mentors told me long ago that 4,000-7,000* copies=good sales for a literary novel and anything over 7K is great. (You mentioned 5K, Lincoln. Similar thinking.) Philip Roth once said that there are about 4,000 serious readers in the country and if you managed to sell a book to all of them, congrats! When a person who doesn't write books or work in publishing seems to think that 75,000 books is basically nothing, we're having a communication (and math) problem. Those of us who write for a living (or partial living) would be thrilled to sell anything above, say, 20,000-30,000 books (number pulled from my hat).
*I've long assumed this is hardcover copies, but I've also been told that full price ebooks (as versus the wonderful sale price ebooks, which can produce some nice royalty surprise checks) get included in that figure. Another source of confusion!
Yes, 75,000 seems like a lot to me! But it all depends of course. That would be great ticket sales to an off broadway play, but horrible blockbuster movie box office sales. Most painters aren't selling paintings to more than 75,000 people (a mere fraction of that normally), but then musicians are selling tickets to many more.
Yes! It's very much situational! Some people are reading that piece and thinking—75,000 sales is a lot for the industry! But as a writer, I can't help but think that I'd much rather go where I can get much more readers than that (like on Substack!).
I greatly appreciate anything that can help writers better understand the business model of book publishing and the realities of the industry. What's missing from this provocative focus on sales numbers—or Substack readers or pick your preferred metric—is that every writer has a unique or preferred business model and demand curve.
On one side of the demand curve are all the people quite happy to engage with you for free and enjoy what you provide for free. It's a high number. On the other side of the demand curve are high-ticket items—say the top pledge tier of a Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter campaign. That's a small number. And then there are multiple points along that demand curve that can be filled in, limited only by the writer's imagination.
One of the most common (but not necessary) points on that demand curve for any writer: offering a book. I think writers can focus too much on the book and little else, but that's their choice to make and it has to be balanced with other factors, like their own strengths and values and what they actually enjoy creating.
It is not wisdom to focus on nothing but attracting the biggest numbers possible with every effort. Even Substack devotees make decisions every day about what's free and what's paid; what's paid will have a smaller audience. And this article on "no one buys books" was certainly designed to reach the maximum number of people in the hopes of turning a few of them into paid subscribers. That's a business model and your choice. But it's not superior or necessarily preferable for all writers. Writing and publishing a book is not less meaningful or worthwhile or even unprofitable because the numbers aren't big. And maybe most important, it's not an either/or situation. Writing and publishing a $25 book does not serve the same purpose as a piece of lead generation on Substack.
I hope writers think about all points on their demand curve and don't internalize any beliefs that would make them feel inferior about how they prefer to run their business.
Well said, Jane. The grandiose speculation on what are frankly incomprehensible numbers to most of us writers is entertaining, but not very helpful. My goal beyond creating something that pleases me and realizes an idea that was only in my head is to reach an audience — to connect and feel a little less alone.
My biggest takeaway from this whole thing is authors that are not in the 1% of the 1% are no longer able to simply write books and find a readership that way. It was a romantic ideal that worked in the Hemingway era but now, only works for a few massive brand authors. For the most part, your regular working author making a living at writing has to do a remarkable amount of backend work that takes time away from the core mission.
In a perfect world we could write a book in a vacuum, get it published to great fanfare, do a tour to meet the readers, then hide away until the next one is done. Those days are over. We have access to our readers — direct access—and who wants to give that up? The onus is on us to do the backend —but the power that gives us as artists can’t be denied.
And fun to think that the blockbuster costs $100 million to make. Whereas if a patron will give me just $1 million I will happily hole up, get off social media, and write my next five books.
I am a bestselling author. I wrote 7 of my 9 published novels while working a full time job. That money helped pay for vacations, dentists, saving for kids tuition, and many more things. For my last two novels I've become a full time freelance writer. The thing is, even when writing is not someone's full-time job, it can provide income. It was a trickle when I was selling short stories to anthologies, and much more once I published novels.
It was also an easier side occupation for me than knitting or baking pies. I know people who do that to make extra money. They also like doing that, but I suspect they're not about to open a Pie restaurant, though if they did I'd be there.
My point is, there is money in books. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and you don't need to be Kim Kardashian to make a buck selling books. I certainly am no celebrity in TikTok.
This is really heartening to hear as someone hoping to publish and support myself with it (at least partially) someday. I found that other piece on the industry really depressing, but also quite negatively biased and alarmist. It's good to know my hunch was right and things aren't as bleak as that piece made them sound.
This was such an insightful read, thank you! The distinction between "earning out an advance" and "profitable book" was especially interesting.
One other aspect of Elle's post that I'd be curious for your thoughts on…she mentions a few times that writers with large, preexisting platforms (e.g. on Instagram or Tiktok) have a huge marketing and sales advantage, and many could still sell thousands of books without a Big 5 publisher. One possible conclusion you could draw from this is that trad publishing is dying, it's not a useful thing to aspire to—writers should be building their own platforms instead. But I'm really curious about your take for trad publishing's advantages for small-to-medium writers. I suspect many writers don't want to and wouldn't be very good at building a platform on their own, and people like Colleen Hoover and Brandon Sanderson are massive, massive outliers. And that form of platform-building may be well-suited to some genres but not others…I can't think of that many literary fiction novels that "broke out" in some way because of the writer's preexisting platform! Many of those seem to rely on a Big 5 or reputable small press (e.g. Fitzcarraldo, Galley Beggar in the UK; New Directions, Graywolf in the US) to gain an audience.
I'd say the evidence there is contradictory even in Griffin's post. She notes that a lot of celebrities with big platforms had their books totally bomb. So I think it's not always clear if celebrity translates to sales. OTOH, you do have popular writers like Brandon Sanderson who raised huge money with Kickstarter campaigns.
I would say that outside of non-writing celebrities, I can't think of many who haven't found traditional publishing useful. Big self-published writers have tended to publish traditionally too. I think for certain writers and certain a hybrid model is very appealing and can be very lucrative. But trad publishing still tends play a big role there. Another example might be SFF writers who publish books traditionally, but publish some stories exclusively to paying Patreon subscribers.
"So, if a book sells one million print copies then the publisher makes 10 million, with 1 million going toward earning out the author’s advance. If the publisher paid an advance of 3 million, the advance hasn’t earned out… but the publisher still made 7 million."
I suppose this is true if you don't include the cost to produce the book, print the book and ship the book.
As someone who runs a small press I sure wish margins looked like this!
Luckily modern technology has solved some of these issues.
We rely heavily on pre-orders so our printing costs are predictable at least. I'll print the copies we need for our core early supporters and then let God, Ingram and Amazon worry about the rest.
Exactly. And since royalties are paid on retail price--$20 in the example––not on net, it looks to me like the author is making 2 million, since it would be 2 bucks a book. I'm in children's books, so at a 50% trade discount on a $20 book, I'm getting $10, of which the author gets $2. Printing can easily cost $3.50 per book. Since covid, shipping might easily be 80¢ per book and if you have a distributor that is 20-27% of the $10, depending, as a distribution fee. So if a book sells 1 million copies for me, well, as it's publisher I'm not getting close to 10 million dollars. Might even, in fact, it's likely that we net less than the author's 2 million. Once marketing, publicity, free books, damaged books, etc are factored in, where exactly is the margin.... that is often the question.
It is a very dicey business for sure. And then there's the issue of returns, making the period of uncertainty with any book store sales uncomfortably long.
I understand he was making a point about books potentially being profitable even if the author doesn't earn their advance back, but there were a lot of expenses left out of the equation. Lots of middlemen with their hands out.
*ahem* The claim that people don't buy books is always funny to me, a person regularly trying to figure out how to make space on my bookshelves/add more bookshelves for the books I decide are worth buying, who always puts in requests for the library to buy certain books, which they do about half the time. I alone am buying at least fifty books a year, closer to 80 when counting the library requests...and that's just what I buy for myself. Nevermind gifting books or getting a copy of a book i liked to donate to Little Free Libraries.
One thing I pointed out in my own response is that this idea that backlist sales aren't real sales, are something other than book sales, is totally bizarre. Every book on the backlist was once a new book! Books that came out a few short years ago are backlist books! Living authors make their living off of the backlist. Just very strange all around.
Yes, I liked your piece! And definitely think you're correct that these claims go viral due to a lot of resentment (both deserved and undeserved) that seems to drive so much of the culture these days. But yes, the backlist is just... any book not published in the last 12 months. And as you noted, lots of "literary fiction" (and other genres) sell well. It's not only celebrity memoires or Great Gatsby type classics.
Anecdotal evidence leaves a more powerful impression.
For example.
I walked into a book store the other day and looked for current title listings. It was the wrong bookstore. The manager said, they are discount book store. When I asked does she compete with other book stores ? She said no, her business is to buy bulk, by the truck load, remaindered books - books that could not be sold and then tries to sell them at huge markdowns.
Sometimes she packages and boxes up mystery bundles to sell for $50 to $100 to move the stock; she is part of a chain -- of remaindered books. I noted the entire store is filled with so many fiction and non fiction author' books that performed poorly.
So what do we to make of all this ? Publishing is a business and we know what is done with poor performing books - offloaded in bulk to recuperate some sunk costs - is this data recorded; it is sale, though different ?
You feel sorry for all those authors who spent so many hours writing these books and that failed to sell. So, was the 12 month effort, or longer, to write their book worth it ?
That's a good question. I don't think remaindered books are recorded anywhere I'm aware of. It is certainly depressing how many books fail to find readers despite all the work put into them. Although I do think sometimes remaindered books can have sold decently, but just have a lot extra printed.
Thanks so much for this analysis, Lincoln. Much appreciated. One chart I found very over-padded by Publishing was Advances. While the top categories certainly would get those royal numbers, I know of zero authors (including myself) in the lower rungs who got 50k-plus for the expected sale of only several thousand copies. If only that were true!
I'm so happy you wrote this counter-piece. I read @kathleenschmidt's great response to that other post and basically agreed with everything she said, and was hoping for a better breakdown of what was so incredibly off about it—and here you are. It presents to us some of pitfalls of Substack, too, which is that everyone is a reporter(!), and there's no fact-checking(!). There was so much missing context, too, like the fact that book publishing is a giant ecosystem with the Big Five, yes, but also indies, and hybrids, and self-published authors. And what did any of it have to do with people not buying books? I'm a hybrid book publisher, and people are not only buying our books; they're buying books that big houses passed on because the Big Five didn't think these titles had a big enough readership. We are not aspiring to sell even 10,000 copies. That would be awesome, but our average sales are more like 1000-4000 per title, and we are still a $1 million dollar publisher. There is much about book publishing that people do not understand. It takes work to get under the hood. The DOJ didn't get it. And that other piece certainly got it wrong. Grateful for your work, Lincoln!
Thanks for this more nuanced analysis. I’ve been in the business of writing since the 1970s so I can remember the good old days of mass market paperbacks. One of my novels sold 340,000 copies in paperback. That would be considered an astonishing number these days. But of course, back then we didn’t have all the other temptations screaming to tablets to smart phones , etc.
I miss paperbacks. What ever happened to them, why the migration to trade?
Wow, that is a huge number indeed! Which book was it? Would love to search it up!
Thanks for asking. IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE, Elizabeth Winthrop. Available online as an e-book which I self published when the book went out of print.
I appreciate your dive into reality-based sales numbers. What disturbed me about that Substack post, though, was the underlying attitude/logic: authors with pre-existing platforms (celebrities, the "queen of TikTok," etc.) are valuable because of those platforms, and authors without pre-existing platforms are a roll of the dice. There's no discussion by any of these publishing execs about *making* books succeed. The CEO of Penguin Random House literally describes his role as that of an angel investor. But he's not an angel investor -- he's the CEO!
I'm not sure what my conclusion is from this. Self-publishing seems even harder to make work especially for literary writers. But it also strikes me as bananas that publishers are so willing to see the failure of their own products as something totally beyond their control. If authors are going to get all the responsibility and blame, they should get a higher percentage of the profits too.
Oh yes, there's certainly a lot about publishing that depresses me. And agree with all that. I will say that I thiiiink that all applies more to nonfiction than fiction. My understanding is it's a lot harder to sell a memoir or essay collection if you don't have a platform, but that's less of a consideration (although not NOT a consideration) for a novel.
Concurring this is true. With fiction, it's about the writing, your connections, and your previous publications (such as magazines/etc). Different kind of author platform.
Great news, but I could have proven this myself, because I know I buy about a billion books a year. These statistics can't include used books (pre-owned) and library borrowing.
Oh they absolutely do not. I mentioned this briefly, but all of the above is NEW book sales in retail markets. Not used book sales or library borrowing... or even sales to libraries, which is a lot of money for authors/publishers.
Thanks for more excellent number crunching, and I'm both surprised and delighted that book sales and movie ticket sales are not far apart. That gives me hope! Likewise, I'm heartened that 50% of books may make money--I've often told students/friends it's much less--but that was my error in equating "making money" and "earning out."
The main thing that struck me about Griffin's article was her baseline assumptions about what # of book sales is OK versus shockingly bad. One of my mentors told me long ago that 4,000-7,000* copies=good sales for a literary novel and anything over 7K is great. (You mentioned 5K, Lincoln. Similar thinking.) Philip Roth once said that there are about 4,000 serious readers in the country and if you managed to sell a book to all of them, congrats! When a person who doesn't write books or work in publishing seems to think that 75,000 books is basically nothing, we're having a communication (and math) problem. Those of us who write for a living (or partial living) would be thrilled to sell anything above, say, 20,000-30,000 books (number pulled from my hat).
*I've long assumed this is hardcover copies, but I've also been told that full price ebooks (as versus the wonderful sale price ebooks, which can produce some nice royalty surprise checks) get included in that figure. Another source of confusion!
Yes, 75,000 seems like a lot to me! But it all depends of course. That would be great ticket sales to an off broadway play, but horrible blockbuster movie box office sales. Most painters aren't selling paintings to more than 75,000 people (a mere fraction of that normally), but then musicians are selling tickets to many more.
Yes! It's very much situational! Some people are reading that piece and thinking—75,000 sales is a lot for the industry! But as a writer, I can't help but think that I'd much rather go where I can get much more readers than that (like on Substack!).
Thanks Lincoln!!!!!
I greatly appreciate anything that can help writers better understand the business model of book publishing and the realities of the industry. What's missing from this provocative focus on sales numbers—or Substack readers or pick your preferred metric—is that every writer has a unique or preferred business model and demand curve.
On one side of the demand curve are all the people quite happy to engage with you for free and enjoy what you provide for free. It's a high number. On the other side of the demand curve are high-ticket items—say the top pledge tier of a Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter campaign. That's a small number. And then there are multiple points along that demand curve that can be filled in, limited only by the writer's imagination.
One of the most common (but not necessary) points on that demand curve for any writer: offering a book. I think writers can focus too much on the book and little else, but that's their choice to make and it has to be balanced with other factors, like their own strengths and values and what they actually enjoy creating.
It is not wisdom to focus on nothing but attracting the biggest numbers possible with every effort. Even Substack devotees make decisions every day about what's free and what's paid; what's paid will have a smaller audience. And this article on "no one buys books" was certainly designed to reach the maximum number of people in the hopes of turning a few of them into paid subscribers. That's a business model and your choice. But it's not superior or necessarily preferable for all writers. Writing and publishing a book is not less meaningful or worthwhile or even unprofitable because the numbers aren't big. And maybe most important, it's not an either/or situation. Writing and publishing a $25 book does not serve the same purpose as a piece of lead generation on Substack.
I hope writers think about all points on their demand curve and don't internalize any beliefs that would make them feel inferior about how they prefer to run their business.
Well said, Jane. The grandiose speculation on what are frankly incomprehensible numbers to most of us writers is entertaining, but not very helpful. My goal beyond creating something that pleases me and realizes an idea that was only in my head is to reach an audience — to connect and feel a little less alone.
Hi Jane. Well said.
My biggest takeaway from this whole thing is authors that are not in the 1% of the 1% are no longer able to simply write books and find a readership that way. It was a romantic ideal that worked in the Hemingway era but now, only works for a few massive brand authors. For the most part, your regular working author making a living at writing has to do a remarkable amount of backend work that takes time away from the core mission.
In a perfect world we could write a book in a vacuum, get it published to great fanfare, do a tour to meet the readers, then hide away until the next one is done. Those days are over. We have access to our readers — direct access—and who wants to give that up? The onus is on us to do the backend —but the power that gives us as artists can’t be denied.
I might argue the romantic ideal never really existed, but yes!
Yeah things were better in some ways certainly, but good to remember even, say, Faulkner had to move to Hollywood to write screenplays.
And fun to think that the blockbuster costs $100 million to make. Whereas if a patron will give me just $1 million I will happily hole up, get off social media, and write my next five books.
I am a bestselling author. I wrote 7 of my 9 published novels while working a full time job. That money helped pay for vacations, dentists, saving for kids tuition, and many more things. For my last two novels I've become a full time freelance writer. The thing is, even when writing is not someone's full-time job, it can provide income. It was a trickle when I was selling short stories to anthologies, and much more once I published novels.
It was also an easier side occupation for me than knitting or baking pies. I know people who do that to make extra money. They also like doing that, but I suspect they're not about to open a Pie restaurant, though if they did I'd be there.
My point is, there is money in books. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and you don't need to be Kim Kardashian to make a buck selling books. I certainly am no celebrity in TikTok.
This is really heartening to hear as someone hoping to publish and support myself with it (at least partially) someday. I found that other piece on the industry really depressing, but also quite negatively biased and alarmist. It's good to know my hunch was right and things aren't as bleak as that piece made them sound.
(Also, I love your books! 🖤)
Great post, Lincoln. Appreciate the nuance and careful (and non-inflammatory) dissection.
This was such an insightful read, thank you! The distinction between "earning out an advance" and "profitable book" was especially interesting.
One other aspect of Elle's post that I'd be curious for your thoughts on…she mentions a few times that writers with large, preexisting platforms (e.g. on Instagram or Tiktok) have a huge marketing and sales advantage, and many could still sell thousands of books without a Big 5 publisher. One possible conclusion you could draw from this is that trad publishing is dying, it's not a useful thing to aspire to—writers should be building their own platforms instead. But I'm really curious about your take for trad publishing's advantages for small-to-medium writers. I suspect many writers don't want to and wouldn't be very good at building a platform on their own, and people like Colleen Hoover and Brandon Sanderson are massive, massive outliers. And that form of platform-building may be well-suited to some genres but not others…I can't think of that many literary fiction novels that "broke out" in some way because of the writer's preexisting platform! Many of those seem to rely on a Big 5 or reputable small press (e.g. Fitzcarraldo, Galley Beggar in the UK; New Directions, Graywolf in the US) to gain an audience.
I'd say the evidence there is contradictory even in Griffin's post. She notes that a lot of celebrities with big platforms had their books totally bomb. So I think it's not always clear if celebrity translates to sales. OTOH, you do have popular writers like Brandon Sanderson who raised huge money with Kickstarter campaigns.
I would say that outside of non-writing celebrities, I can't think of many who haven't found traditional publishing useful. Big self-published writers have tended to publish traditionally too. I think for certain writers and certain a hybrid model is very appealing and can be very lucrative. But trad publishing still tends play a big role there. Another example might be SFF writers who publish books traditionally, but publish some stories exclusively to paying Patreon subscribers.
"So, if a book sells one million print copies then the publisher makes 10 million, with 1 million going toward earning out the author’s advance. If the publisher paid an advance of 3 million, the advance hasn’t earned out… but the publisher still made 7 million."
I suppose this is true if you don't include the cost to produce the book, print the book and ship the book.
As someone who runs a small press I sure wish margins looked like this!
Yes in the next paragraph I say that's not accounting for costs of the book, marketing, etc. But I should edit to clarify that's revenue not profit
You mentioned marketing specifically. But, in my experience, much of the $10 is going to be eaten up by the cost of printing the book.
I'm not as familiar with costs of printing a million copies. If I ever have that problem, I will be too busy dancing a jig.
Yeah scale hugely affects this question! I ran a small press (for one color hardcover book) and printing was most of our budget
Love this blog and appreciate your commitment to writing about these issues.
I'm reminded of a saying I've heard. "The worst thing for a minor label is for them to find themselves with a major hit."
When you're not ready for scaling up all the sharks come swimming for money that you don't yet have for a product that you have yet to deliver.
Luckily modern technology has solved some of these issues.
We rely heavily on pre-orders so our printing costs are predictable at least. I'll print the copies we need for our core early supporters and then let God, Ingram and Amazon worry about the rest.
Exactly. And since royalties are paid on retail price--$20 in the example––not on net, it looks to me like the author is making 2 million, since it would be 2 bucks a book. I'm in children's books, so at a 50% trade discount on a $20 book, I'm getting $10, of which the author gets $2. Printing can easily cost $3.50 per book. Since covid, shipping might easily be 80¢ per book and if you have a distributor that is 20-27% of the $10, depending, as a distribution fee. So if a book sells 1 million copies for me, well, as it's publisher I'm not getting close to 10 million dollars. Might even, in fact, it's likely that we net less than the author's 2 million. Once marketing, publicity, free books, damaged books, etc are factored in, where exactly is the margin.... that is often the question.
It is a very dicey business for sure. And then there's the issue of returns, making the period of uncertainty with any book store sales uncomfortably long.
I understand he was making a point about books potentially being profitable even if the author doesn't earn their advance back, but there were a lot of expenses left out of the equation. Lots of middlemen with their hands out.
*ahem* The claim that people don't buy books is always funny to me, a person regularly trying to figure out how to make space on my bookshelves/add more bookshelves for the books I decide are worth buying, who always puts in requests for the library to buy certain books, which they do about half the time. I alone am buying at least fifty books a year, closer to 80 when counting the library requests...and that's just what I buy for myself. Nevermind gifting books or getting a copy of a book i liked to donate to Little Free Libraries.
One thing I pointed out in my own response is that this idea that backlist sales aren't real sales, are something other than book sales, is totally bizarre. Every book on the backlist was once a new book! Books that came out a few short years ago are backlist books! Living authors make their living off of the backlist. Just very strange all around.
Yes, I liked your piece! And definitely think you're correct that these claims go viral due to a lot of resentment (both deserved and undeserved) that seems to drive so much of the culture these days. But yes, the backlist is just... any book not published in the last 12 months. And as you noted, lots of "literary fiction" (and other genres) sell well. It's not only celebrity memoires or Great Gatsby type classics.
Here is a recent experience.
Anecdotal evidence leaves a more powerful impression.
For example.
I walked into a book store the other day and looked for current title listings. It was the wrong bookstore. The manager said, they are discount book store. When I asked does she compete with other book stores ? She said no, her business is to buy bulk, by the truck load, remaindered books - books that could not be sold and then tries to sell them at huge markdowns.
Sometimes she packages and boxes up mystery bundles to sell for $50 to $100 to move the stock; she is part of a chain -- of remaindered books. I noted the entire store is filled with so many fiction and non fiction author' books that performed poorly.
So what do we to make of all this ? Publishing is a business and we know what is done with poor performing books - offloaded in bulk to recuperate some sunk costs - is this data recorded; it is sale, though different ?
You feel sorry for all those authors who spent so many hours writing these books and that failed to sell. So, was the 12 month effort, or longer, to write their book worth it ?
A lost opportunity cost to learn another skill ?
That's a good question. I don't think remaindered books are recorded anywhere I'm aware of. It is certainly depressing how many books fail to find readers despite all the work put into them. Although I do think sometimes remaindered books can have sold decently, but just have a lot extra printed.
Thanks so much for this analysis, Lincoln. Much appreciated. One chart I found very over-padded by Publishing was Advances. While the top categories certainly would get those royal numbers, I know of zero authors (including myself) in the lower rungs who got 50k-plus for the expected sale of only several thousand copies. If only that were true!
.... so many numbers... make my head spin !
Thank you! Well done.
What a really interesting and helpful article - thank you.