Post #3638085

2026-07-06 21:59 UTC

There's a stat that went viral claiming half of all books sell fewer than a dozen copies. It's actually not as bad as all that (the analyst later walked back her claims), but a general benchmark you can keep in mind is that roughly two-thirds of books from major publishers won't crack 1000 copies in their first year. 1000 copies...hang on, that's a low threshold. The amount of signal it takes to stand out from it is *tiny* But there's even more: *when* you do it matters

Replies (3)

@grimalkina@mastodon.social 2026-07-06 22:00

You will see authors like your girl here start to sound a little bit unhinged when we talk about "preorders." But WHY. It's because a book that sells 500 copies spread over six months looks, mathematically, like a failure to most "is this book something we should show people" systems. The same 500 copies concentrated into one week, especially the preorder windows, can trip thresholds. Thresholds like: this book lands in retailer algorithms. This book lands in a purchaser's consideration

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@wordshaper@weatherishappening.network 2026-07-12 16:18

@grimalkina@mastodon.social when I wrote for O’Reilly they warned me (and all the authors) that if you were in it for the money you should go work at McDonalds because it paid better per hour.

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@agreeable_landfall@mastodon.social 2026-07-12 19:45

@grimalkina@mastodon.social I recall buying a book, then the publisher went broke. So the only copies in existence were from that first print run; so something like 1000 copies. The author couldn't just take it elsewhere, because that's how book contracts are written. But it *was* in the time before publishers insisted on having all the digital rights. So the author's next book contained a CD with the full text of the out-of-print book. The system is stacked against authors.

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