I was just wondering if there is any information online on cumulative book sales.
OSC said somewhere that only 300 people read Xenocide. It's gotta be slightly more than that, but it would be quite interesting to see exactly how many more, and how this compares to other OSC books, and to other writers.
Anybody know or do the publishers keep this well hidden?
Also, is there information on foreign sales?
I come from a country (The Netherlands) that, although relatively small, sells a lot of books per head. A bestseller can sell more than a 100,000 copies. Donna Tartt, for example, sold so many books in The Netherlands that her new novel A Little Friend was published *first* in a Dutch edition before the English edition was published. Rather interesting, I thought.
There was a traditionally strong Fantasy/SciFi scenen in The Netherlands, with serious publishers like Meulenhoff publishing many titles. I'd be interested to know how well OSC does there.
PS: And yes, I *did* notice how The Netherlands is treated in the Shadows series, which is an interesting extrapolation of current political trends which may not be altogether wrong....
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
All I can tell you is that Shadow of the Giant has been on major bestsellers lists (NY Times, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal) since its release a month ago.
OSC was definitely joking about only 300 people having read Xenocide. According to the cover of the paperback edition, it was a national bestseller as well.
Posted by signine (Member # 7671) on :
Yeah, and Xenocide was awesome. I highly recommend it.
-a member of the few, the proud, the 300
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
OK, so some copies might have had more than one reader, so maybe it was 500 people who read Xenocide.
Can't tell you cumulative sales. First, you could use that information to calculate EXACTLY how much money I make - info that I only provide to the IRS - and second, sales aren't always "sales" - sometimes they're just copies that are sitting around bookstores but haven't sold yet. A full and accurate accounting of sales probably is impossible in the real world.
We can say, with safety, that Ender's Game has sold dozens of copies in thousands of languages. Or something like that.
Posted by LTC DuBois (Member # 7661) on :
Direct quote from Tor's FAQ.
"Some of our correspondents ask us for proprietary information, like the total earnings to date on an author's books, or which parts of our standard contract are negotiable and to what degree. Sorry, but we won't do that either. (If the authors want to give their personal financial information to strangers, that's their problem; but we won't do it for them.)"
No soup for you!
Posted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (Member # 7476) on :
I'm doing my part. I own two copies on Xenocide.
Posted by Suri-cool (Member # 7599) on :
But also you don't count library copys. I read mine rom a library, and probbely millions more did too.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
At the Philly signing he thanked the 3 of us who read Children of the Mind I was happy to be one of those 3
Posted by TrapperKeeper (Member # 7680) on :
Alot of teachers have their classes read Enders Game too. And alot of those are classroom sets that maybe 4 or 5 years worth of students read.
Posted by Gryphonesse (Member # 6651) on :
I think I'm getting counted more than once.. I can't even guess how many copies of Ender's Game I have loaned out and never gotten back! I have to buy at least one copy a year. And I've bought Pastwatch at least three times. I need to get a better book-loaning system!
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
It's too bad that it's so difficult to determine book sales. We always hear about how much money movies make, and how many households were watching a tv program, and even how many copies of video games are sold. Why are books different?
Posted by macnewbold (Member # 7660) on :
Amazon and Barnes and Noble list "sales rankings" on their books. It isn't a total cumulative sales figure, but it can be a good indicator of how well one book is doing compared to another, and of how well it's doing overall.
For example, on Amazon, Shadow of the Giant is ranked #267, and Ender's Game is #855. That's out of _all_ their books. That says something pretty cool to me about the popularity of OSC's books.
Posted by macnewbold (Member # 7660) on :
[I had written this more complete post, but thought I accidentally closed the browser window and lost it. So here it is, despite is present redundance.]
One thing I've found interesting is the sales rankings on web sites like Amazon and B&N. You can even do searches and sort the results by bestselling order.
According to Amazon, among all the books they sell, Shadow of the Giant is #267 in sales, and Ender's Game is #855. At Barnes and Noble, the same two books are #1,204 and #2,162 respectively.
Granted, it isn't a cumulative sales total, but if Shadow of the Giant is the 267th most popular book (ever) on Amazon, that's saying something...
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Shoot ... i'll bet there are at least 500 Hatrackers alone who have read Xenocide......
Farmgirl
Posted by Von (Member # 1146) on :
Then there is the fact that I've gone through several copies of "Ender's Game' - as they never seem to return when borrowed.
Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
My copy of Xenocide got eaten by my dog! So I have to get a new copy. So I will have purchased 2 copies there by throwing off the numbers of how many people have read it! Bwa ha ha! This cannot yet take effect though because I am broke. Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:Granted, it isn't a cumulative sales total, but if Shadow of the Giant is the 267th most popular book (ever) on Amazon, that's saying something...
Not "ever", just "Currently". The ranks are based on hourly sales. It is still pretty impressive considering that Amazon has tens of thousands of books on sale though. You should have seen how it ranked when it first came out. It was in the top 100 on amazon, and I think it was in the top 30 on B & N for a while. Incidentally, I made a thread over on PWeb following its status on the major bestsellers lists. I made a thread about it here too, but no one seemed to notice.
[ April 05, 2005, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: neo-dragon ]
Posted by FormerlyEmpty (Member # 7717) on :
I own two paperback copies of every Ender book. I also own a hard cover signed Ender's Game, signed Ender's Shadow, unsigned Shadow Puppets, and unsigned Shadow of the Giant. (Didn't really like Hegemon) In addition I own a leatherbound signed copy of Ender's Game and have purchased 8 paperback copies which I donated to my school and kids around my city.
Posted by Jasmine (Member # 7370) on :
Loved SotH! i hate to say this, but i'm one of the people who read a library copy very ashamed. but i'm gonna get all of the Ender and Shadow series someday! hopefully soon, i'm feeling lost right now. i have to read First Meetings and Investment Counselor too.
Posted by Avin (Member # 7751) on :
I've only heard about First Meetings and Investment Counselor recently. Are they available online? Or are they part of a book? I'd like to read them.
Posted by CRash (Member # 7754) on :
The book is called "First Meetings". It has a collection of four stories, including Investment Counselor, the original Ender's Game, The Polish Boy, and Teacher's Pest. I don't think it's online, except for Ender's Game, but I do think you can get it in most bookstores or order it online.
Posted by Avin (Member # 7751) on :
So why is this book not listed in OSC's Bibliography or list of books here on Hatrack? That's what I usually look at when I'm looking to see if there's any of his books I haven't read.
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