Throughout the Penguin Random House trial, where the Justice Dept. seeks to prevent PRH from merging with Simon & Schuster, a variety of facts and figures have been presented from both sides about the Big 5 publishing industry. Few have covered the trial so well as Jane Friedman and her Hot Shots newsletter (subscription required).
One of the interesting nuggets she mentioned this summer, and later clarified in her latest newsletter, has to do with the percentage of books that sell well. Bear in mind these are traditional titles and they are mainly paper-based. The stats Jane Friedman reported that caught everyone’s attention were the fact that only 10 percent of books sell more than 2,000 copies. In addition, of the 58,000 books published every year, only half sell more than a dozen copies.
These figures are astonishing to many people, and they need some nuance. One point to remember is that the trial focused on New York publishing houses, PRH in particular. Ignored were indie titles, which make up a larger and larger percentage of the industry every year.
Titles read through Amazon’s subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, are also ignored. These books, including independent, traditional publisher titles as well as Amazon Publishing books, are not purchased by subscribers. But, publishers are reimbursed via number of pages read. Kindle Unlimited generates millions in income, and results in an untold number of books read (but not purchased) every year.
While the digital realm is completely ignored in statistics like this, the idea that a traditional title selling under a dozen copies per year, or ever, is rather sad. A lot of time and effort goes into books, with writing, editing and cover art along with distribution and (hopefully) marketing.
Jane Friedman noted in her follow-up comments, appearing in her latest newsletter, that the stats focused on “trade” books, defined as the sort a typical customer might find at a bookstore. She added that these figures were for new titles, not publisher backlists which comprise the majority of books sold each year online and elsewhere.
She closes the segment with a discussion from NPD Bookscan figures, including one cited in the New York Times last year indicating only two percent of all new titles sell more than 5,000 copies their first year in print.
Motivational speaker Les Brown has said, “Help others achieve their dreams, and you will achieve yours.” This is essentially what Amazon did when they opened up KDP, allowing anyone to publish a book. The sales may be digital, or subscription based, but anyone publishing on Amazon can certainly sell more than a dozen titles in a year. With good writing, a great cover and excellent advertising, they have a decent shot at gaining more than 5,000 sales, too. That is something every erstwhile author should consider.
-+-
This weekend only (through Sept. 25), the second book in Star League Assassins is on promo over at Amazon. Download Last Cohort for free for this limited time.
Until next time, happy reading.
JR
I read this just dumbfounded. Why would anyone use a traditional publisher with that kind of ROI? I've beat the odds on publishing a dozen by far, and I'm almost at the 2000 mark and that's without having the money to truly advertise. I'll likely go over the 2000 mark when my fantasy romance gets published (as soon as I finish editing it). As an independent author I get a higher percentage of revenue from each individual book and KU let's readers who aren't familiar with my work take a risk-free chance.
I'm confused about your clarifications of Friedman's stats... Do they include self-published books or not?