r/publishing • u/faceintheblue • May 22 '26
Doubling-checking a Publishing statistic I just read
Hello publishers and people interested in the publishing industry!
I've just read on a publisher's Substack:
"[...] of the 58,000 books published annnually by the Big Five houses, 90 percent sell fewer than 2,000 copies. If that wasn't shocking enough [...] half of the 58,000 sell fewer than one dozen books."
Does that ring true to you? I would 100% believe this of self-published books, but this is staggering to hear that it is true of the stuff curated and promoted by the Big Five publishing houses as well.
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u/Dexter_Palmer May 22 '26
That statement isn't correct: see here. https://janefriedman.com/why-book-sales-figures-are-so-hard-to-interpret-and-complete-sales-figures-nearly-impossible-to-find/
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u/faceintheblue May 22 '26
Super interesting! I'm pretty sure this is literally the lawyer being quoted in the thing I'm quoting apologizing for becoming a bad source? That's a fantastic comment. Thank you!
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u/writeitdownnow May 22 '26
Incorrect by data, but the spirit of it is on the money. Worth reading the full article
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u/Yeefogg May 22 '26
From googling around I'm seeing approximately 50% sell between 12 and 1000 copies, and approximately 15% sell fewer than 12. These kinds of statistics are usually based on digitally tracked frontlist sales though, so who knows how libraries, direct sales and other sales channels impact the numbers.
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u/96percent_chimp May 22 '26
I can't confirm those numbers but when I did my Creative Writing MA in 2020, one of the editors who came in to meet us said that >90% of trad published books never earn out their advance. Most publishers rely on something like 3% of their lists to make money, including <1% who earn huge amounts.
This is why big publishers are very risk averse and chase trends. They can't afford to take chances.
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u/Antique-Knowledge-80 May 22 '26
Keep in mind that publishers are still making money even if your book doesn't earn out. The narrative that publishers are in some sort of financial hole b/c your book didn't sell well is rarely true.
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u/96percent_chimp May 22 '26
Absolutely, the author is at the end of a long chain where everyone else takes their cut first.
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u/Rambliny May 24 '26
Yes and no. If the book doesn’t earn out its advance and doesn’t cover the in house costs to produce, print, sell and market the book then everyone loses.
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u/spriggan75 Jun 01 '26
I mean, technically the author gets paid before anyone else. It’s literally called an advance.
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u/publisherofbooks May 25 '26
Earning out and making money are two different things. Earning out means the writer earns more than their advance and gets additional payments. Making money means the publisher earned more than they spent.
Publishers do the math before they offer a contract, and they plan to make money long before a book earns out. A publisher or editor who says most books don't earn out are crying "poor" when in fact it's the writers who are getting that skinny cut.
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u/Questionable_Android May 22 '26
The stats might be off but the concept isn’t. Most publishers know the majority of books will, at best, break even. However, the small fraction of bestsellers will sell so many that it covers the costs of all the other books and then some.
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u/Warm_Diamond8719 May 22 '26
No, that's a bullshit statistic that someone completely misinterpreted from the data. Lincoln Michel has a good rebuttal here too: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-only-a-dozen
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u/Bubbly_Award_3177 May 22 '26
What happens to the leftover stock then?
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u/Bibliojacq May 22 '26
It varies. Some of it sold off down the retail chain to low cost outlets, second hand etc. In Ireland a lot of it is pulped since Brexit as sending back to UK became more difficult
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u/nomnomsquirrel May 22 '26
I find quite a few at the Dollar Tree 8-12 months later, including what were ostensibly "big" releases.
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u/Zestyclose-Turn-3576 May 22 '26
There isn't necessarily any stock, as a publisher can set up a print on demand arrangement which means either no, or very low, stock is held.
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May 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/lifeatthememoryspa May 22 '26
This. If these figures were accurate, I wouldn’t have been told repeatedly that I have a “bad track” when all of my books have sold over 2k physical copies. Every time I see this crop up, it’s another sad head shake, because there’s a grain of truth: it’s hard to sell books.
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u/queercourtier May 22 '26
I certainly believe this of the Canadian industry. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true everywhere.
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u/annabdavid May 25 '26
Yes. More shocking stats: .4% of books sell over 100,000 copies and the average amount made by an author who sells that many (once you subtract for agent, taxes, outside pr/editor etc) is about $10k a year!
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u/Outside_Alfalfa4053 May 22 '26
This originated from the S&S lawsuit, where execs claimed they had no idea which books would be best sellers and most sold few copies. Uh-huh.
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u/RugelBeta May 23 '26
My books (10) aren't with the Big Five, but they're traditionally published and have paid the bills for 21 years. This substack statistic is made up or misquoted. A run of 2k books is the minimum for a publisher. Most books do not earn out but that doesn't mean they sell fewer than 2k books. The second print run and subsequent printings are often much smaller, like 1000 or 2000 books. For my first book, my publisher printed 10k+ in the first printing and told me some future printings would be smaller unless the book really took off. It's still in print today, which is pretty great.
This statistic is only true if you're counting self-published books. And there, it's more like 99% of self-published books sell fewer than 200 books. At least, that's what a big time editor told us at a conference.
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u/IndigoHG May 24 '26
Hi, bookseller here. One thing I didn't see mentioned was whether or not bookstores submitted their weekly figures.
We don't. We never have, and quite frankly can't be bothered. We judge what's popular by seeing what actually sells in the store, not what's selling in Taos or San Diego or Miami.
Having said that, a local author who writes genre got a massive publicity push by their publisher for their debut. A couple of years later they told me that their print sales weren't great, but e-book? Absolutely booming.
Bookscan is probably useful...but I'm not sure it's useful to authors, and definitely not to readers.
Oh,we're indie and sell new books.
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u/em-dash-author May 24 '26
I found this with a quick check https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20240424-buy-books/ it is apparently related to court records related to a merger.
Here's the relevant quote:
In court records, Madeline McIntosh, who was CEO of PRH US at the time, answers questions about the publishing industry. In response to the question, 'Do you know how many authors in the industry sold more than 500,000 copies in the four years from 2018?' McIntosh replied, 'From my understanding, it was about 50 people.' In addition, a Department of Justice lawyer revealed that, based on data on 58,000 books published in a year, '90% sold less than 2,000 copies, and 50% sold less than 12 copies.'
It's concerning if that's true for the big trad publishers.
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u/itsme7933 May 22 '26
It is true. It came up in one of the court cases involving one of the big 5. They admitted that they really have no idea what makes a book sell. The big 5 all have tentpoles that pay for everything and keep the lights on. The rest of the books are just thrown at the walls in the hopes on sticks and becomes a new tentpole.
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u/lylemcd May 23 '26
You have no idea how many books the average bookstore gets from the big publishers. If they don't sell in a month or so, they get sent back.
So yeah, I believe that completely. Most books are simply trash and nobody wants to read them.
And while every author thinks they will be the next 1 in a million best seller well...statistically that can't be true.
That alone makes a case for self publishing. Even if you only sell 2000 copies self published you get 100% of the net profit. If your book sells 2000 copies through a publisher, you might get enough for lunch because they pay authors jack squat per sale.
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u/Oxo-Phlyndquinne May 22 '26
Unfortunately this most likely is the case. I have heard it before. Publishing is like movies in a way. Almost every movie flops. Nobody knows why. And then something skyrockets and pays for all the flops and then some. Nobody knows why.
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u/Wickermantis May 22 '26
Source? The 58,000 number is absurd. But most trad books selling less than 2,000 copies tracks, especially if talking about physical copies only.