I'm going to get off the track of my own adventure now to share a few statistics for my friends and family who seem to think that writers have it made. Just write a book and you'll be rich and famous. Yeah, right. If one is lucky enough to have an editor, a percent of any commissions made will go to the editor. Factor out other costs, and multiply by the number on the bottom line below and the truth should be glaringly clear!
An Excerpt from Publisher's Weekly.
In 2004, Nielsen Bookscan tracked sales of 1.2 million books in the US.
Of those 1.2 million, 950,000 sold fewer than 99 (yes, ninety-nine)
copies each.
Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies.
Only 25,000 books sold more than 5,000 copies.
Fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000 copies.
Only 10 books sold more than a million copies each.
THE AVERAGE BOOK IN THE US SELLS ABOUT 500 COPIES.
I wonder if this will explain my brother's reaction when he said something about me being rich and famous . . . I tried to tell him that I didn't receive $5M for my book. He just couldn't understand that. Darn, nothing like the disillusionment of family members to make your success lose its glow.
More to come . . .
1 comment:
Remember that stats can be manipulated. For myself, selling 500 books seems attainable, lol. We'll see :)
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