A writer asked me, “What does the average book sell? An industry veteran at a writers conference recently said 5,000. What??? I know it all depends …. but … nowhere near 5,000, right?”
My simple answer?
It’s complicated.
It depends.
Average is a difficult thing to define. Each publishing company 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 from real royalty reports received by our agency without revealing the author name or the publisher (note the different genres and number of books):
Author 1: novelist – 3 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 8,300
Author 2: novelist – 12 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 19,756
Author 3: novelist – 3 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 7,000
Author 4: novelist – 7 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 5,300 (two different publishers)
Author 5: nonfiction devotional – 5 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 10,900
Author 6: nonfiction – 2 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 5,300
Author 7: novelist – 4 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 29,400
Author 8: nonfiction – 3 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 18,900
Author 9: fiction – 7 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 12,900
Author 10: nonfiction – 5 books – avg. lifetime sales per title = 6,800 (three different publishers)
As you can see it DOES depend. It depends on the author and publisher and topic or genre.
[Note: the numbers above combine paper and digital sales into total units sold. Breaking that down is another question for another day. Today we are only concerned with “how many books sold” not “what format sells more units.”]
If you take the above authors and their 51 titles, they averaged 12,455 lifetime copies sold for each book published.
Thus I usually say that the “average” book sells 10,000 copies with a major publisher. But if all their books only sold 10,000 copies, they might struggle financially. There have to be exceptions to the rule.
Be aware that the word average means that for every book that sells 15,000, there is one that sells 5,000. And for every book that sells 20,000, there is one that is a disaster.
I know of an author with a very large publisher whose novel has sold only 1,087 copies in its lifetime. But I also know of others who have sold over 500,000 copies. Thus the word average can be problematic.
This difference is significant because it illustrates the nature of the commercial publishing side of the industry. If a publisher has controlled their costs in production, editorial, and the author contract, they should be profitable if they sell 20,000 copies.
One publisher told me they wouldn’t consider publishing a book unless it can generate $250,000 in net revenue in its first year. I paused for a second and did the math. If a paperback book retails for $15.99 and the publisher receives a net of $8.00 per book, then this publisher is saying that they have a threshold of 30,000 copies in projected sales before they consider publishing a book.
That may seem high to some authors, but for that particular publisher it is their base, their average. Every publisher is different in that regard. For others, that first-year average revenue goal is lower.
Don’t forget there are many different types of books. Seasonal books (Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day) sell only for a short period each year. Academic books are intentionally structured economically to be profitable with minimal sales (thus their higher retail prices). Gift books with full-color interiors are expensive to print and produce. The same with children’s picture books. Etc.
Some writers find this type of discussion depressing or claim that publishers are unfair. But others find this exhilarating because they now know how high the mountain is. And once you know the nature of the summit, you can plan your path and your training accordingly.
[An earlier and shorter version of this post ran in September 2011, yet my analysis has not changed. Thank you to Tina Radcliffe for suggesting I revisit this post.]
Fun Fridays – June 21, 2019
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Interesting analysis.
At a book store I will sometimes see a brand new novel by a top author in the first hardbound edition with a price tag over $30. The author might be getting as much as $5-$10 for that. A top author of fiction will likely sell far more than the average so you will see sales sometimes top a million copies. But not everyone is J K Rowling. She’s actually a billionaire but I don’t know how much of that is what she got for movie rights. I wrote a little years ago but found my lack of success disappointing. I didn’t earn as much as I was working in a factory as a machine operator. So I changed my focus to art, painting specifically and I learned some lessons in that field that I think could be applied to the world of publishing. As a fledgling artist I thought I would earn my living by painting portraits, get famous and have collectors pay millions for my work and I could retire wealthy. As with writing and in fact many fields like singing, acting, sports etc. few artists earn enough to live on that. There are just so many people doing the same thing and only a tiny percentage find success as super stars. But I learned how to leverage what I did. My original business model was to hang a shingle, display a portfolio of my work and take commissions. My first year I got three commissions and earned $1500 yet that was more than I made from my novel. Then I got some really good advice. It generally took me about a week to complete an oil portrait working about 50 hours on it. The average portrait sold for about $1000 but I was starting out and could only charge half that. So I was earning a gross of $10 an hour and was about to give up on that. I had a conversation with an artist who was doing quite well but he, I was sure, was a lesser artist than myself and people I knew agreed with me. But the advice he gave me was to put far more time and effort into a handful of “master pieces” and take no more commissions. He advised me to keep my factory job for now and then when I had about 6 pieces that I had poured my heart into then I should go around and enter them into art shows and regional contests to see how many awards I could get. After that he advised me to have the works scanned by a quality printer and then have them print out poster size limited editions and sign and number them. I followed his advice. I derived the majority of my income not from the sales of original oil paintings but from the sales of limited edition prints. To break even selling original works I would have to charge $2000+ given the time and materials (art supplies are ludicrously expensive). But by creating a limited edition of 100 and selling those signed and numbered prints for $100 each I was able to earn five times as much. I now never sell my originals though occasionally take a commission. This is how I learned to leverage my creative power. J K Rowling and certain other highly successful authors will certainly earn a good living from book sales but they derive most of their income from leveraging their creativity beyond the initial creativity process. She gets most of her income from movies and licensing. Same with Stephen King. Most other authors will never see that kind of success and so won’t be able to leverage what they do into movie and licensing deals. However, they can often leverage what they do in other ways. A professor can write a textbook but never sell more than 1000 copies per edition. But by making it a required text for his class and charging $100 a copy he can earn far more per book than the author of a novel who sells twenty times as many copies and never more than one edition. An author can derive a hundred times as much money going on a speaking tour than from book sales. A friend of mine is in a band. They made three CD albums of their music and sold their CD’s for $15 but only sold about 1000 CD’s per year. That was no where near enough for the Band to live off of. The band derived most of their income from touring. They also sold T-shirts which actually made them more money than the Albums did. Learn to leverage what you do.
Great advice. I’ve been publishing my poetry books on Amazon a self-publisher. I sold a few books to friends and family at first. I did a little Amazon sponsored ads and didn’t get much back. I nearly gave up. However, I stuck with it after getting some great feedback from the small number of people who purchased the book. After 2 months of driving organic traffic from my blog and continuing with Amazon, I’ve started selling at least 1 book every day. Some days I get 6 sales or sometimes 4. My point is, a book can grow, it might take some time but if your feedback is strong and sales start picking up, it might be worth the climb to the top of the mountain. Well, I fell like I’ve climbed the first 100 meters.
I feel very encouraged. I’m a new author and recently released a SUSPENSE ebook called Irrevocable Consequence. I’m hoping one day I can be like you all and reach a climax in sales. It’s a pretty good book; it just needs to grow traffic. Check it out here if you guys are interested. It’s on Amazon too. Irrevocable Consequence by Anastasia Simonds. May we all have success!
Thank you everybody for your personal perspectives. I have just completed my first draft of a book that follows my faith through two years of my son’s mental illness crisis. In his early 30’s he lost his home, his girlfriend and everything he owned as schizoaffective disorder took over his being. I learned much about the law and how ineffective it is for family trying to help someone. I have always journaled, but this book was my way of dealing with each step of this journey and my effort to help others experiencing the same. I am just beginning to reach out to publishers, not because I am looking to make money, but I want to impact as many lives as possible and this book is my way of doing so. I feel a publisher has so much to offer in critique and making certain that my many references are given due credit. Just waiting for the right door to open!
love to read this quality content.
Well,
If the Good Lord wants you to be a financial success as a writer, it will happen, regardless of the critics and “experts”. If you’re ONLY seeking wealth through writing (evil eye), they it probably will not manifest.
Making a “Godly” difference in the reader should be the driving motivation of a writer! Yes, we need money to live, but, if you seek the Lord’s Will in your work, the funds will come without your striving for it.
What is the average amount a published author makes for their book?
It’s 2021, and my book was published in 2020 the year of covid. The publisher requested a cover I thought was appropriate. The day before she published it with Amazon, she changed the title and the cover. I’ve had 15 books sold in 7 months and I have people commenting that it looks like it’s all about covid. She won’t change the cover. The title was changed because someone in her family, not in the business, thought the title suggested the person was stealing a romance from someone else despite the cover showing she was stealing a VISA from someone’s pocket. So very frustrated. Authors and readers have messaged me and commented on why the covid mask?? All I can say is the final decision is the publisher’s (or their family member).
How does that relate to sales?? I believe the title and cover would have been much more appealing to the genre than a vague title and a covid mask cover, but I have to leave it to God. He’s in control not me. Continuously have to remember this!
Your content is wonderful – so glad I stumbled upon it!
https://www.learningquraan.co.uk/