I'm curious as to how I would go about finding out how many of a given book have be sold or what are the gross sales of a given books?
For example, how many copies of 'Enders Game' have been sold, or lacking that, how much money has 'Enders Game' grossed?
This is easy enough to do for movies. There are many places on the internet where you can get box office results. But I've never seen the equivalent for books.
Any thoughts?
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
I don't know why this is, but it seems to be just about impossible for an outsider to get that sort of information about book sales. Actually, I think part of it might be to keep people from being able to estimate how much money authors make.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
BUT... sometimes you read media reports (like for Harry Potter books) that say "15 million copies sold", etc.
So where are they getting that information? Only when it is released by the publishing house?
quote: According to sources, over 15 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were sold in less than a day when the 7th and last book in the well loved Harry Potter series went on sale just after midnight on Friday the 20th.
Who the heck are "sources"???
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Exactly, Farmgirl.
And neo-dragon is correct. I don't think that it's so people can't estimate how much money authors make -- it's so rivals (and reporters and the general public) don't know exactly how healthy or ill a particular list, imprint, publisher is.
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
According to Chris Anderson in The Long Tail:
"In 2004, 950,000 books out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than ninety-nine copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies. In other words, about 98 percent of books are noncommercial, whether they were intended that way or not." (pg. 76).
From Nielsen BookScan's Web site: "Nielsen BookScan has the best and most comprehensive data in the industry, picking up sales from approximately 4,500 retailers across the country."
One wonders if those retailers include Amazon (note that it list sales rank, but not copies sold).
The truth is that this secrecy isn't just about publisher paranoia -- it's also about the perceived buying habits of Americans -- the need for cultural products to be seen as a "hit." My guess is that publishers would freak if consumers knew exactly how few copies of any particular title (even ones that get great reviews and press) are sold. Americans are used to thinking in terms of hundreds of thousands or millions. That's why, you usually only trumpet how many copies sold if you have a bona fide blockbuster that's selling thousands and thousands of copies.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: BUT... sometimes you read media reports (like for Harry Potter books) that say "15 million copies sold", etc.
So where are they getting that information? Only when it is released by the publishing house?
quote: According to sources, over 15 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were sold in less than a day when the 7th and last book in the well loved Harry Potter series went on sale just after midnight on Friday the 20th.
Who the heck are "sources"???
I would imagine that for hugly successful books the publishers make statements like that to promote their success, just like printing "Best Seller" on the cover. But even those statements aren't very specific. "Over 20 million" is vague. But speaking of Harry Potter and sales statistics, according to several local news reports in my area, during the first 24 hours after the release of DH, Indigo (A major chain of book stores here in Canada), sold an average of 3 copies every second.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Is there some qualification to get a book on the New York Times Best Sellers List? Say, to even get ranked you have to sell minimum 100,000 books?
Or is it merely the top 10 book sales regardless of actual volume sold?
Exactly what does 'Best Seller' mean anyway???
I never thought about this before, but I got to wondering about it as the subject of "Eragon" came up again. I liked the books and defend them when ever and were ever I can. But exactly how many books did Paolini sell? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?
Again, what does 'Best Seller' mean?
Just curious.
Steve/BlueWizard
Posted by Saephon (Member # 9623) on :
Well, to be very cynical (that's what being unable to sleep does to me ) I'd say Best Seller means about as much as The #1 Movie In America. i.e. whatever the speaker of the phrase wants it to be.
And on that note, I don't think the NY Times list is one of my top trusted resources on books. If I recall correctly, they bumped the Harry Potter series into "children literature" or some rubbish like that, just to keep it off that Best Seller List >:|
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
A bestsellers list is a list of the books that fit the parameters of the list that sold the most at the booksellers who contribute sales data to the list.
As Saephon notes, a lot of lists are rather careful to define the parameters and select the booksellers that will produce a list that will reflect the image the the publication producing the list wants to portray (or what it thinks that its readership wants it to portray).
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
quote:Originally posted by Saephon: Well, to be very cynical (that's what being unable to sleep does to me ) I'd say Best Seller means about as much as The #1 Movie In America. i.e. whatever the speaker of the phrase wants it to be.
And on that note, I don't think the NY Times list is one of my top trusted resources on books. If I recall correctly, they bumped the Harry Potter series into "children literature" or some rubbish like that, just to keep it off that Best Seller List >:|
It kinda made sense to do that since the list would just have been dominated by HP books for a ridiculously long time.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I read somewhere that the NY Times list is one of the worst places to use if you are wondering how a books sells, because they use so many parameters to manipulate their list that it is basically useless.
Star Wars books aren't allowed on the list under any category because they are based on a world created for movies, despite the fact that they almost always sell giant numbers....far more on average (x3 more) than most books on their list.
Posted by neo-dragon (Member # 7168) on :
I don't know about that. Most Star Wars books have "New York Times Bestseller" printed right on the cover of their paperback editions.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
From what I have heard, NYT list is more of a list of the books that the editorial board thinks are the best books at the time.
If I am remembering correctly the WSJ and USA today were supposed to be more of a list of the books with the highest volume of sales.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
) I'd say Best Seller means about as much as The #1 Movie In America. i.e. whatever the speaker of the phrase wants it to be.