Some Random Facts About Publishing
Feb. 1st, 2007 02:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaHere's another little known fact about moi: I follow the comic strip For Better, or For Worse like a soap opera. Yesterday, Michael (whose manuscript he risked his life to save from the fire around Xmas) got a 25K advance for his first book. To someone who has worked in publishing, (albeit academic presses) this bordered on the ridiculous. Very rarely will a first time author get an advance that large.
So, to put a little perspective on the thing, I thought I'd share the following facts about publishing:
* There are about 32 million unique titles in American libraries. Of those titles only about 6% are in print, and only about 20% are in public domain. The remaining titles are in the awkward place of being out of print, but still under copyright.
* Approximately 200,000 new titles are published each year.
* The average book in America sells about 500 copies.
* In 2004, 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5000 copies, 500 sold more than 100,000, and 10 sold more than a million.
Of course Nielsen is imperfect, and the numbers presented are only for the 1.2 million they are tracking, not the 32 million gathering dust in libraries. There are plenty of books that aren't tracked, or aren't tracked accurately, but this is just to give you an indication of how publishing operates in this country. Predominantly publishers sell to niche markets. But a great deal of money goes into chasing after those sales, and most of it does not go to the author, who can expect royalties of about 10% net on their books.
So, if the average book sells 500 copies, and the average price is somewhere around $25 (an informed guess for hardcover, plus it makes the math easy) Michael Patterson can expect to earn about $1250. In order to earn back an advance of $25K he would have to expect sales of at least 10,000 copies.
Edit: And this is assuming his royalties are gross instead of net. Most publishers negotiate royalties based on net.
I'll leave you to do the work on the odds, as it's 3 in the morning and I'm going back to bed. Let's just say that this editor doesn't consider the odds very likely that a first time book by an unknown author is going to magically become a best seller, particularly in its first two years. (Publishers never like to advance more money than they think they can make back in the first year or so. They are often in the unenviable position of having to eat advances that are not earned back, which the author's won't return, and for which it is more trouble than it is worth to pursue repayment.)
Of course, I could be wrong. Michael Patterson could've written the next great diet book, or the next book on how men and women are from different planets.
P.S. Numbers courtesy of the July 17, 2006, Publisher's Weekly, p. 164.
So, to put a little perspective on the thing, I thought I'd share the following facts about publishing:
* There are about 32 million unique titles in American libraries. Of those titles only about 6% are in print, and only about 20% are in public domain. The remaining titles are in the awkward place of being out of print, but still under copyright.
* Approximately 200,000 new titles are published each year.
* The average book in America sells about 500 copies.
* In 2004, 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5000 copies, 500 sold more than 100,000, and 10 sold more than a million.
Of course Nielsen is imperfect, and the numbers presented are only for the 1.2 million they are tracking, not the 32 million gathering dust in libraries. There are plenty of books that aren't tracked, or aren't tracked accurately, but this is just to give you an indication of how publishing operates in this country. Predominantly publishers sell to niche markets. But a great deal of money goes into chasing after those sales, and most of it does not go to the author, who can expect royalties of about 10% net on their books.
So, if the average book sells 500 copies, and the average price is somewhere around $25 (an informed guess for hardcover, plus it makes the math easy) Michael Patterson can expect to earn about $1250. In order to earn back an advance of $25K he would have to expect sales of at least 10,000 copies.
Edit: And this is assuming his royalties are gross instead of net. Most publishers negotiate royalties based on net.
I'll leave you to do the work on the odds, as it's 3 in the morning and I'm going back to bed. Let's just say that this editor doesn't consider the odds very likely that a first time book by an unknown author is going to magically become a best seller, particularly in its first two years. (Publishers never like to advance more money than they think they can make back in the first year or so. They are often in the unenviable position of having to eat advances that are not earned back, which the author's won't return, and for which it is more trouble than it is worth to pursue repayment.)
Of course, I could be wrong. Michael Patterson could've written the next great diet book, or the next book on how men and women are from different planets.
P.S. Numbers courtesy of the July 17, 2006, Publisher's Weekly, p. 164.
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Date: 2007-02-01 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 07:18 pm (UTC)I don't think that the numbers are completely hopeless, though. To me they also represent opportunity. (All those OOP, but still in copyright books are causing small presses to spring up everywhere.) People complain about how there are fewer readers than their used to be, but they never mention that we are publishing more books (and at less expense) than ever before.
It will also be interesting to see what role technology plays. Publishing has been utterly transformed by desktop publishing. Digital printing is also revolutionizing the process (though with mixed results.) E-books still remain elusive, (and may got the way of the gyrocopter) but who knows how technology will manifest itself next in the process.