At the RWA National conference in Orlando, I heard Ethan Ellenberg speak. He talked about Book Marketing from an Agent’s Perspective. Since my historical novel, The Tapestry Shop, comes out this fall, I was especially interested in what he said about sales and how they affect your career. He packed a lot of information into that one hour.
I pass this along, for those whose goal it is to be on the NY Times best-seller list. He said that the initial sales number is most important, and that when books sold before the release date, it had a negative impact on the numbers, because the sales, for rating purposes, go week by week. Thus, if a bookstore sells a book before the release date, it will minimize the sales the week of the release. By way of explanation, he said best-sellers might be number 4 one week, and number 257 the next, so if an author’s sales are dispersed over a period of weeks, his rating will stay down. Before this, I never quite understood the ratings.
Mr. Ellenberg, contrary to what we all hear, said he believes an author should spend 90 percent of their time writing, and 10 percent on marketing. That may be fine for Palin or King, but most publishers have cut their budgets and an author is expected to take an active part in marketing. In fact, most of the burden has now shifted to the author.
Someone from the audience asked how much of the print run needed to be sold in order to be deemed successful. He said that 50 percent of the print run was the usual dividing line. Less than 50 percent sales is considered unsatisfactory. Fifty percent is “okay”. If your book sells above the 50 percent mark it’s doing well.
Print runs are frequently between three and six thousand, with big houses printing fifteen to thirty thousand.
As for the demise of printed books, he believes there will always be physical books and readers to buy them. They make beautiful gifts, they stay on your shelves, and don’t get read and deleted. He emphasized that our goals as authors should be a presence in all markets: audio, print, and digital. Like TV and radio, the industry will evolve and thrive.
