by Steve Laube
We recently received the following question:
“What does the average book sell today? An industry veteran at a writers conference recently said 5,000. What??? I know it all depends….but … nowhere near 5K, right?”
My simple answer?
It’s complicated.
It depends.
HAH!
Average is a difficult thing to define. And each house defines success differently. If a novel sells 5,000 copies at one publisher they celebrate and have steak dinners. If a novel sells 5,000 copies at another publisher you find staff members fearing for their jobs and in total despair.
Let me give you some real numbers but not revealing the author name (and there is a wide variety of publishers represented):
Author 1: novelist – 3 books – avg. sale = 8,300
Author 2: novelist – 12 books – avg. sale = 19,756
Author 3: novelist – 3 books – avg. sale = 7,000
Author 4: novelist – 7 books – avg. sale = 5,300 (Two different publishers)
Author 5: non-fiction devotional – 5 books – avg. sale 10,900
Author 6: non-fiction – 2 books – avg. sale = 5,300
Author 7: novelist – 4 books – avg. sale = 29,400
Author 8: non-fiction – 3 books – avg. sale = 18,900
Author 9: fiction – 7 books – avg. sale = 12,900
Author 10: non-fiction – 5 books – avg. sale = 6,800 (three different publishers)
So you can see it DOES depend. Depends on the author and publisher and topic or genre.
