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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Economics

Economics

A $100,000 Threshold for a Worthy Book?

By Steve Laubeon August 4, 2025
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In 2015, Brad Martin, the President and CEO of Penguin Random House Canada, was quoted as saying the following:

“I’m not interested in a book that is going to generate less than $100,000 in revenue unless the editor or publisher [division] has a compelling vision for the book and/or the author…If the person that’s championing that book in the acquisitions meeting doesn’t have a compelling view of it, it’s just trying to fill a slot, then I’m not interested in doing it….I don’t subscribe to the, ‘Well, it’s not going to cost us very much.’ I don’t care what it’s going to cost you – what’s your vision of this book? Because, no, we can’t afford to do a lot of small books without a vision, because they take as much time to put through the system as a big book does.”

In other words, for this publisher, unless there is a threshold of $100,000 in projected revenue, they won’t publish it.

Publishing Economics 101

Before your eyes glaze over with another discussion of publishing economics, think on this: publishing is a business. A business must have money left over after expenses – or they go out of business. This principle can also affect a non-profit ministry that is involved in any enterprise, not just publishing. If their revenues are exceeded by their expenses, it begins to drain resources designated for other parts of the ministry. I know of one large denomination that, many years ago, dropped its publishing division because its losses were draining funds intended for its clergy’s pension plans.

Back to the $100k proclamation. On the surface that sounds like a very high, if not impossible, number. But if you look more carefully, you’ll see that it isn’t as nefarious as it sounds.

Let’s say the retail price of the book is $20. The publisher sells that book for $10 to a bookstore or an online retailer like Amazon. To have $100,000 in revenue, using this scenario, the publisher needs to sell 10,000 copies to hit that magic threshold. And that isn’t an unreasonable number!

Disclaimer

Note that the $100k quote was made 10 years ago by the Canadian branch of Penguin Random House. The Canadian book market is not quite as large as the U.S. Market, which makes that 10,000 unit sales threshold a little more challenging.

Be careful not to apply these numbers to all publishers and all genres. Fiction and non-fiction are different. Although the costs of production are quite similar, sales channels are different, and expectations vary. In nonfiction, a book on raising kids is different than an academic tome on the nature of electricity.

Every publisher is different. Each one has a different expense structure and different definitions of success. Using any sort of “number” as a hard and fast threshold can only apply to a specific situation.

I’ve sold highly academic projects to academic publishers whose “numbers” reflect their situation in-house. In other words, each publisher is going to evaluate a book based on their sales and profit projections. For one publisher, it could be 3,000 copies, for another, it could be 30,000.

There is no “one size fits all” in publishing economics.

Be careful not to get caught up in the numbers or the comparison game. The danger is thinking that your book is a failure if it sells “only” 8,000 copies or thinking it is a raging success if it sells more than 20,000. Each situation bears its own merit. For one publisher, selling 10,000 is cause for celebration. For another publisher, selling 10,000 copies might cost someone their job. It is all a matter of perspective and expectations.

Reality

A few years ago, I had a major-sized publisher tell me that their in-house threshold was $250,000, so this isn’t “new.” In that case, the editor was basically saying that they needed to project sales of about 30,000 units in the first year to consider a project viable.

Publishing is an unusual business in that it is the “Business of Art.” Art has within it an emotional component and thus a book can often be acquired because of the intense belief, on the part of an editor or publishing group, in the power of the story or the power of the message. This gives hope to many aspiring authors that their book (fiction or non-fiction) will captivate an agent, an editor, a publishing exec, and the public. It can happen, and it does.

It is a little rattling when the art form is reduced to numbers by a powerful person inside a publishing house. It suggests that numbers trump art… (That mathematical formula looks like this: $$ > !! )

And yet there remains optimism at every turn. Deals continue to be made, even in these “dog days of Summer.” (Our agency continues to average a new book deal every two business days!) Great writing and great ideas will always be paired with great publishing.

 

 

 

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Category: Book Business, Economics, MoneyTag: Book Business, Economics, Money

Newsflash: Most Writers Don’t Make a Lot of Money

By Steve Laubeon June 16, 2025
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A couple years ago the Author’s Guild released a survey revealing that very few writers earn a liveable wage based on their income from writing. In fact, most earn less than the poverty line. Publishers Weekly reported the findings this way: “The survey, which drew responses from 5,699 published authors, found that in 2022, their median gross pretax income from their books was $2,000. When …

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Category: Career, Economics, MoneyTag: Career, Money, Writers

Author Accounting 101

By Steve Laubeon April 17, 2023
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You are a published author. You must be rich! You are an agent. I know you are rich. If it only were true. Let’s attempt to explain some of the bottom-line basics of Author Accounting. Please remember this exercise is generic; your mileage may vary. I will use some simplified numbers, so we can all follow the math. Let’s start with a $20.00 retail-priced book. The publisher sells the book …

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Category: Book Business, Career, Contracts, E-Books, Economics, MoneyTag: Author, Economics, Money

Hidden Retail Economics

By Steve Laubeon October 18, 2021
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I find the world of retail and bookselling economics fascinating. Doesn’t make for scintillating party conversations, but I digress. Below is a video that you should watch first as I have a few thoughts related to its content below the video. (If you cannot see the video in your newsletter feed, please visit the blog on our website where it is embedded.) This particular video is a few years …

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Category: Book Business, Economics

Submission Mistakes of the More Subtle Variety

By Bob Hostetleron March 25, 2021
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I wrote a post on this blog a while ago (here) about some embarrassing and even disqualifying mistakes writers had made in submissions to me. One reader commented on that post, expressing gratitude and then adding, “What would be helpful to me is to hear the subtle or inadvertent mistakes aspiring authors make when sending a proposal to you. Can you help us with that?” Why, yes, Louise, since you …

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Category: Book Proposals, Economics, Pitching

A Year in Review: A Look at 2019

By Steve Laubeon January 6, 2020
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It’s that time of year to reflect on the past year, to learn from our experiences, and to count our blessings. Here are some thoughts on the last tumultuous twelve months. The Industry The publishing industry seems to survive the bad press that loves to find the negative in everything. Each publisher continues to pursue the best content possible. The market is ever-changing, and some really smart …

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Category: Agency, Agents, Awards, Book Business, Book Sales, Christian Publishing Show, Christian Writers Institute, Contests, Conventions, Economics, Encouragement, Marketing, The Publishing Life, The Writing Life, Trends

Should I Write for Free?

By Bob Hostetleron February 27, 2019
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Writers write, right? Often, however, writers are invited, asked, pressured, or even hornswaggled (look it up if you have to) into writing for free. Sometimes that’s good. Often it’s bad. How can you know which is which? One word: strategy. What is your strategy? Do you even have one? Or, put another way, do you have a mission statement as a writer? When you define where you’re going and what you …

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Category: Economics, Money, The Writing Life

Good and Bad Advice on The Writing Life

By Dan Balowon June 19, 2018
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After graduation from college, I got an entry level job at a radio station, programmed with call-in talk shows. I carried out the trash, conducted regular “Frosty-runs” to Wendy’s for the news director, painted the sales office, screened callers for the shows during off-hours, took transmitter readings, got coffee for the hosts, and anything else the boss wanted. Once in a while, they let me push …

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Category: Career, Contracts, Economics, Marketing, Platform, The Writing LifeTag: Career, The Writing Life

Common Sense Publishing

By Dan Balowon May 22, 2018
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I will often use humor as a defense mechanism. It helps maintain my sanity, to some extent. However, I’ve noticed a number of times what might be considered a weak attempt at humor is actually true. I guess the common statement about most humor having a kernel of truth in it, might be accurate after all. I’ll frequently respond to someone questioning why something is happening by stating, “Oh, you …

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Category: Book Business, EconomicsTag: Book Business, Common Sense

The Minimum Wage Author

By Dan Balowon March 13, 2018
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Most authors earn less than legal minimum wage writing books. Most do so for their entire writing careers. (U.S. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. A full time person working 40 hours per week would earn an annual revenue of $15,000 at that rate.) In fact, they work for free for a long time before getting paid and once they do get paid, the amount earned almost never makes up for the long …

Read moreThe Minimum Wage Author
Category: Economics, Money, The Writing LifeTag: Career, Money, The Writing Life
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