Author Support Group discussion

I don't know how many books have sold through the online and bricks-and-mortar stores, but I worked out about a month ago that during the previous three month period I had personally, through direct selling, sold around 100-110 copies of my Guppy book per month. Well, I whooped because that sounded like a lot, and then didn't know whether it was or not.

So, basically, how many is a lot? How many books does the average author sell? I haven't a clue. I read somewhere that J K Rowling's publisher printed 500 copies of her first book, and that publishers aren't surprised to sell 300-600 copies of a book. If that's the case, I will go back to whooping. If not, I might still do a little jig because I was happy to sell just the one.

I also read that 8,000 would make the author a bestseller... which doesn't sound like a lot to me, but what do I know! Anyway, I sat in a store on Saturday and was surrounded by bestsellers... there are dozens of them, and apparently they're all the 'No.1' bestseller.

So, any numbers?

Gina,

I've heard that most indie books don't sell more than 500 books over their lifetimes. This is compared to traditionally published first books which are said to sell less than 5000 copies over their lifetimes. But you may also want to read this article that I found. You might find it informative:

http://jeffreykrames.com/2009/03/04/h...

Interesting article... as was The Guardian one it linked to.

I've been a tad surprised that at every signing so far I have been asked when the sequel will be out. This started just a couple of months after the book was released. Thinking about the whole branding business, and the speed at which books are expected to be fired out by the big sellers, I guess it's only natural that it will filter down to even us newbies who are just starting out and are about as likely to be on the best seller list this week as they are to be made Pope.

I didn't know that bestsellers were calculated on sales in a single week. That's why there's all the hype before the book comes out... to create a mad rush. I get it now.

I sell so many books, I need to take off BOTH shoes to count them all!

Gina,

I've discovered that it takes a huge marketing machine to get one's book noticed. With the rare exception, even the best selling indie books still don't reach the level of sales the worst selling tradtionally published books make. From what I have learned, the key to an author's overall success is to get word of mouth. Spamming people to death won't do the job. Getting one's book into the hands of your target readers will. My strategy is simple, take care of each reader one at a time and build from there. If that reader likes your book, they'll likely tell others. The idea is to find a way to get your readers to promote your book. Once that happens everything opens up for you.

acheive the result
indie books r

Wait, make friends with readers? I thought the real key to success was to bash the competition down until you were the last author standing?

Forgive my sarcasm. :o)

What is the average life of an indie book? Anybody know?

Here's one self-publishing company's take on book sales (numbers and awards):

http://www.selfpublishing.com/marketi...

I know this has nothing to do with numbers, but whilst trying to find an article I read in the Guardian a while back (that was about numbers), I came across this and found it interesting:

Bestseller versus groundbreaker

Great article, Gina!

"Cream rises while leaden prose sinks."

t

Gina, 100-110 books a month I think is fairly good. My first novel The Sage and the Scarecrow sold 200 copies. I was fairly pleased with the number to be honest, because when I started writing the book, I didn't know if it would see the light of day.

It took me a while to get that far selling part time. The time I had to spend on it though was fairly slim. I would actually love to hear how you manage 100-110 a month.

Do books given away for free count as copies sold? Or does actual money have to exchange hands, so to speak?

For example, do my 30-odd copies of Spellbound that have sold at smashwords count as sales even though they were downloaded free with a coupon? Or are we only talking hardcopy books here?

Thank you for any help...

Jaimey, I was talking about books that were sold for hot cash in my grubbies... well, not really in my grubbies, but we can talk about free ones too. They are, after all, an indication of interest in a book.

Daniel, I've done quite a few signings, so they've increased interest. Other than that, I think I've been doing what everyone else is doing... networking, blogging, tweeting, that sort of thing. I suppose I do spend a lot of time online. What did we do before the Internet?

In answer to Jaimey's question, the answer is it depends who's doing the counting. The question came up in one seminar last week at Killer Nashville.
If it's the author (or, sometimes, publisher) doing the counting, they will be counted. But if it's one of the primary organizations rating book sales, it may only count if it's sold in a bricks & mortar store or, possibly, an on line venue like Amazon. One author at the session reported he had 'sold' 3,000 copies of his book but a major bookseller organization had him down for only six sales.

My 100-110 sales per month went through the store checkouts while I was present. I hadn't thought about the fact that sales made directly for cash, privately, don't show up on any system.