Average Author Sales

[DATo]

Please don't misunderstand me, I sincerely believe in the quality of my work. It's not about sells, I'm financially okay. I'm a nurse, my husband a truck driver...we are doing well. I was just asking if that analogy was true. My friend is spitting her books out while I struggle for perfection. I used an editor, I used a professional book cover designer, and I took my time making sure my characters were fully developed.

So if someone finds it in their heart to read my story, I will be thankful...very thankful. But I just know with my work schedule and thought process, I don't believe I could do what she does.

I am in your camp Terry. In my opinion quality always trumps quantity. She may sell a lot of books but yours will be the one we remember. She will live better today but you will live forever.

Here is a link to a post I recently made which speaks to this very subject.
forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php ... 15#p572641

[Vermont Reviews]

Very true.

-- 25 Apr 2016, 06:22 --

Please don't misunderstand me, I sincerely believe in the quality of my work. It's not about sells, I'm financially okay. I'm a nurse, my husband a truck driver...we are doing well. I was just asking if that analogy was true. My friend is spitting her books out while I struggle for perfection. I used an editor, I used a professional book cover designer, and I took my time making sure my characters were fully developed.

So if someone finds it in their heart to read my story, I will be thankful...very thankful. But I just know with my work schedule and thought process, I don't believe I could do what she does.

I am in your camp Terry. In my opinion quality always trumps quantity. She may sell a lot of books but yours will be the one we remember. She will live better today but you will live forever.

Here is a link to a post I recently made which speaks to this very subject.
forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php ... 15#p572641

Keep up the great work.

[SpaceRangerFred]

It is not easy selling books, but if you focus only on sales you tend to lose focus on writing so I tend not to worry about average sales. Average sales are always skewed, as is any average.
I have "sold" or "used for promotion" hundreds of books I had printed for the South African Market. As much as I would like to call them sales they are not but these books have lead to sales and in a way do form part of my average sales.
It is my first book and I my second in the series is due in early August, I am not using the average sales of the first book to measure the next book.

[Rachel McClellan]

As an author, it's hard not to compare myself to other authors who are writing 6000-8000 words a day! I'm lucky if I get in 2000. I don't doubt that there words aren't quality because they are successful, but I have to remind myself that I have 4 young children where they often have none. I need to balance my time between being a mom and an author.

When it comes to marketing, this also shares my time with writing. If I didn't market, very few would know about my books. That being said, of my ten novels, only 3 sell very well.

[Leigh M Lane]

I don't know if it is true but if I had to put out a book every three months it would give my brain a hernia.

Your post is a very interesting one and touches on something I have been thinking about a lot lately. It seems that quantity and cheapness is becoming more important than quality these days in just about everything. In the old days we had pens, safety razors, cigarette lighters and a lot of other things including marriages that were maintained and kept for a lifetime. Today we live in a disposable society. We use things up and then throw them away. The result is that we have come to look upon things that were once cherished as being of less value than things which are "new and improved". (Have you ever wondered how something can be both new AND improved? How can something be improved if it is new and never existed before?) *shrugs*

I've often mused over the whole "new and improved" angle. I'm not old enough to remember fountain pens being the norm, but I have lived long enough to know "new and improved" generally means "we've found cheaper substitutes for the ingredients that once made this product great, and we hope using 'new and improved' instead of 'formulated more cheaply' will keep you from noticing the difference." If you're a child of the '70s or younger, you do know the difference.

Anyway, I think that this concept also extends to the arts as well. Go to a museum and it is probable that you will see some hideous work of "art" hanging on a wall that took a day to make being extolled as a "GREAT WORK OF ART". Let me tell you something, Leonardo's Mona Lisa was never completed. He worked on it for years and years. Maybe that's why it is considered the finest painting ever created. Can you imagine what would come out of an artist if he had to paint a "GREAT WORK OF ART" in say three minutes? That's what is being asked of authors who are expected to put out a new book every three months. You are in all likelihood going to get a book that reads like it was written in three months. I guess the idea is that if you write four books in a year rather than one the law of averages says that one of them might become a hit thus the odds are greater of making money with one of four rather than just one.

But the frightening thing is that for publishers to be courting this idea it is because it has some proven merit and what does this say about us as a reading public? It doesn't bother me that some people are willing to buy junk to read; as a professor of physics once told me, "Dato, you just have to accept the fact that some people are just stupid." *LOL* It bothers me that the standards of quality, whether applied to literature, merchandise or our selection of political candidates is also becoming stupidly cheapened (think Trump). Sadly, I think we are becoming a stupid society in general and like children we are reaching for and willing to accept baubles rather than true gems.

Absolutely. The watered-down and formulaic is selling well these days. Some of it is decently written. Much of it is mediocre at best. Escapism is just what's in right now. I wrote a romance novel in a month once. It was a good book, nothing spectacular. I've written multiple sci-fi and horror novels in a year. Their quality has varied from excellent to poor. Stephen King has churned out some phenomenal work at breakneck speeds. I believe content is the bigger issue than the time it's taking authors to finish their next drafts. According to PW, "general fiction" and romance outsold all other genres last year. As a writer of some very serious speculative fiction, I do find this a little disheartening. There is a place for everything, including romance and other escapist types of works, but the general avoidance of the more provocative side of literature is prevalent all across the genres. Sadly, if you want to write thought-provoking work, it had better be Oprah Book of the Month material or include a heated and dynamic romance on the side if you want it to really sell right now.

[brianference]

I would love to know for goal setting purposes what the average income is for an author that has 10 books published. I have heard some numbers like $10,000-$40,000 a year income.

[Lincoln]

I think marketing is paramount with so many self-published books out there. I know I have reviewed a few gems on this site and wish the authors could get more exposure.

This is definitely the case. Exposure costs money, and more people are vying for it.

[Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha]

With the advent of digital books and free e-books in libraries, it is getting even harder to sell paperbacks. I think printing self published books on demand is a way out. That way authors are not stocking cartons of books in their garages for months or years. Though printing on demand is far more expensive. The bottom line is that perhaps one should be psychologically prepared from the beginning for poor sales. And also prepared for stellar success and accomplishments in case it goes that way. Thanks for writing this - got me thinking...

[Arrigo_Lupori]

Wow the numbers are very discouraging. If one pays too much attention to this kind of stuff he may be thrown off completely.

[jjmainor]

Good to know. I was so upset because one of the other authors I associate with, does this. It took me almost a year to write my first book and she puts them out every three of four months. It made me think, is there something wrong with me?

Thank you so much.

Everybody writes at a different pace, so don't despair. Just think of James Joyce who spent 17 years writing Finnegan's Wake.

[losTcHild50]

'It seems that quantity and cheapness is becoming more important than quality these days in just about everything.

Today we live in a disposable society. We use things up and then throw them away.

Anyway, I think that this concept also extends to the arts as well.

It bothers me that the standards of quality, whether applied to literature, merchadise or our selection of political candidates is also becoming stupidly cheapened (think Trump). Sadly, I think we are becoming a stupid society in general and like children we are reaching for and willing to accept baubles rather than true gems.


Hi DATo,

I completely agree. I believe that the powers that be are deliberately lowering standards - look at the amount of crap that gets churned out on Netflix!

However, just because this is what is being fed to us, doesn't necessarily mean it's what the majority of people want. There are some great podcasters/youtubers that have a good following. They've filled a vacuum for people like us that like to analyse on a deeper level. I can no longer bare to watch TV with its news sound bites/headlines because they're not giving the audience enough to critically think with. They're telling us what to think. I have faith that with the right marketing strategy and with a bit of faith, (and of course a good product), our work will find it's way to those that will appreciate it.

However, I'm in newbie. In a year I might be really cynical!