Link Time! How Many Novels Actually SELL?

[Katie-Ellen]

Link dump. Boo! Hiss! Soz. But.....


BubbleCow | Who Else Wants To Know How Many Copies Novels Actually

And, ahead of Peter's next virtual seminar on the 2oth, though I may by now be risking a blackballing

http://bubblecow.com/what-is-the-best-book-genre-to-write


Have a peacock. Seen outside my window last week. He terrifies the ducks.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Had to laugh at the how many copies sell article...my husband asked me that very question yesterday, and I think I said something like "no one seems to know, but I think it's none to very few" Seems I was spot on.

 

[J. Rook]

Link dump. Boo! Hiss! Soz. But.....
View attachment 1171

I don't mind link dumps. Saves me going to look for blogs and websites.

Peacocks are noisy, intrusive creatures. Not very nice at all.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Fascinating information, which makes me doubt even more the wisdom of trying to secure a traditional publishing deal. Setting aside any advance that an author may receive, look at those gross sales amounts and try to imagine how much of the loot actually trickles down to the writer.

It mystifies me how book companies continue to survive, unless they're fortunate enough to have a bestseller that makes millions and subsidises the 'also-ran' titles. Getting a best-selling book turned into a movie or television series adds to the profit, with extra merchandising revenue. This must be why the entertainment corporations that own publishers make such vast profits.

Self-publishing is attractive in many ways, not the least because you keep most of any earnings. The drawback is how to promote the book and yourself to attract readers. I think that this is why so many writers chase literary agents and publishers, as they've got the experience, the contacts and the artillery to make some noise!

Peacocks are much nicer birds to admire from a distance than to live around, which I've done several times. Apart from their nosiness and the racket they make, they produce lots of guano, making walking outside an obstacle course of poo! I had a male bird wander into the living room of my farmhouse, when I left the front door open to bring shopping in from the car. He ignored a trail of seed I laid to lure him to freedom. Getting him out again involved a wrestling match, a blanket and several broken pieces of pottery as he tried to fly through the window flapping broad wings around.

They're also amazingly aggressive birds to small creatures, which they hunt in the undergrowth—amphibians, fledglings and rodents. I once saw a cock bird pounding a frog to death on a stony track, stomping it with huge, scaly, taloned claws in the same way as an African Secretary Bird kills snakes.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Yes, tbeautiful but horrid. It vanishes for months on end then reappears with an unearthly skrike. I am making the noise now, trying to think of the word that best describes it. Someone can do better than skrike, I'm sure.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

If you're rich and famous, become even wealthier (and despised by real writers!) by publishing a book.

The multimillion-dollar sums that celebrities make on books — and how they actually sell

 

[J. Rook]

Fascinating information, which makes me doubt even more the wisdom of trying to secure a traditional publishing deal. Setting aside any advance that an author may
taloned claws in the same way as an African Secretary Bird kills snakes.

Self-publishing = self-pushing/self-marketing. I have withdrawn quite seriously from the mad-house that is Facebook marketing. Twitter is more composed except that time is needed to follow and make the most of the tweeting process. I am not a gifted marketer. I never will be. So for my books it is a case of either paying a good virtual assistant or finding a traditional publisher. Meanwhile, the writing imperative gives my days direction and profound satisfaction.

 

[J. Rook]

Yes, tbeautiful but horrid. It vanishes for months on end then reappears with an unearthly skrike. I am making the noise now, trying to think of the word that best describes it. Someone can do better than skrike, I'm sure.

"Skrike" is very good. It has the hardness and "tearing" quality of the call. Skriking won't do your throat a lot of good.

 

[KG Christopher]

I think we just have to write the best we can, and hope our book stands out from the crowd, or try and make it as an A-List celeb in order to publish our book -- the thing we are most passionate about.

 

[Marc Joan]

Don't know which sounds worse -- the sales figures or the skriking.
Yes I do, it's the sales figures...

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I think basing "best book genre" by sales depends on recent trends as well. For example, I bet post-apocalyptic books sold really well after Hunger Games came out (see Divergent and I'm betting The Giver spiked as well).

 

[J. Rook]

I think we just have to write the best we can, and hope our book stands out from the crowd, or try and make it as an A-List celeb in order to publish our book -- the thing we are most passionate about.

If you ever have a moment of enlightenment regarding making it as an A-List celeb, you are duty bound, as a high-up member of Litopia, to share!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Fascinating information, which makes me doubt even more the wisdom of trying to secure a traditional publishing deal. Setting aside any advance that an author may receive, look at those gross sales amounts and try to imagine how much of the loot actually trickles down to the writer.

Yes, I was putting together a non-fiction book proposal the other day, and got to the marketing plan part, and realised that, whether I was going to traditionally publish or self-publish, I was going to do most of the marketing (for non-fiction, the author brings the market to the publisher, not the other way around), so why should I bother trying to interest a traditional publisher? So if my self-pub experiment with Glint of Exoskeleton goes okay, I'm not going to waste my time writing any more non-fiction proposals--I'm just going to self-pub the non-fiction.