500 Copy Average discussion

I’m going to throw out some often-repeated stats, based on the 2004 Nielsen Bookscan results (summarized from 7/17/2006’s Publishers Weekly):

* In 1994, 1.2 million books were tracked by Nielsen and 950,000 sold fewer than 99 copies.

* 200,000 books sold fewer than 1,000 copies.

* Only 25,000 books sold more than 5,000 copies.

* Around 500 books sold more than 100,000 copies.

* A paltry 10 books sold more than a million copies each.

* The average book in the US sells around 500 copies.

Using USA Today’s top-100 selling books of 2004, I assume the 10 million-plus sellers were:

1) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
2) The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston
3) Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
4) The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren
5) The Five People You Meet In Heaven: A Novel by Mitch Albom
6) The South Beach Diet Good Fats Good Carbs Guideby Arthur Agatston
7) My Life by Bill Clinton
8) The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
9) Deception Point by Dan Brown
10) Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

That’s four books by Dan Brown, two books about the South Beach Diet, two enlightenment books, a controversial president’s autobiography, and a book released eight years earlier but bumped up because the movie adaptation came out.

I’d say Americans really aren’t giving new books an honest shot.

I'm starting the group to see what I'm missing and, in doing soon, hopefully letting some of you folks know what you're missing. So tell us what we should read an why. Hopefully some folks will give it a shot and chime in with their own review.

This will hopefully become a good place to talk up that local author that's getting no traction outside of your hometown or a good book with low distribution at a second or third tier publisher.