OMG In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. LESS THAN ONE DOZEN.
90 percent of titles sell fewer than 2,000 units.
I am an amazing success. (Even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it.)
I am only seeing these quotes in The Hot Sheet or people quoting The Hot Sheet - @JaneFriedman is this getting read wrong? How can someone only sell 12 copies of a book?
I do see this in NYT: "about 98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies." nytimes.com/2021/04/18/boo…
And I see this from a 2006 article: "In 2004, 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies."
I originally saw the info here: mailchi.mp/hotsheetpub/bn…
Another interesting article here
tonerbuzz.com/blog/how-many-…
Has anyone seen a detailed run down of the trial? Even a transcript?
Here's some more reading: researchgate.net/publication/32…
Disclaimer: I am not an agent, publisher, accountant. I just thought the info was interesting.
I've been with 6 publishers, 5 editors, 1 agent. I have always made at minimum "buy leather couch" money. I quit my day job in 2008 and now make more than I did in PR for Kaiser.
And since I have your attention, here's a great place to donate money: thetrevorproject.org
This got way more popular than I expected for something where I just thought "Huh that's interesting" and tweeted about while waiting for my pizza. I'm trying to respond to comments but I know I'm missing some.
Jane Friedman has addressed on Instagram
Add @TheLincoln weighed in - very informative: countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-book…
Just to keep this all in the thread - go to Lincoln's Substack for more details.
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