Second Printing

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

And so, e to the world and e's goodnight.

[Skar]

To return to the topic at hand.  I'm confused and naive.

To the uninitiated eye, the numbers on Elantris look pretty dismal.  Less than 200 sold a week for the last many weeks?  But every time I talk to EUOL he says the book's doing really well and the gist I get off this thread seems to pretty much agree with him, that it's doing well.

Are these numbers actually good or are we all being artificially bright and cheery?  How do they compare with mainstream thriller numbers? Or Romance numbers?

[Firemeboy]

Deseret Book sold 10 copies of my book last week, if that puts anything in perspective...

[EUOL]

Skar,

Some perspective.  A mild bestselling hardback book (i.e. in the NY Times top 50, but not in the top 25) sells between 35-40k books.  Or, around 2-4k books a week in its opening weeks, averaged at 700 books a week over a year (though paperbacks usually come out after about ten months, so it would be a little higher.)  A super mega bestseller in sf/f (Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind) sells between 100k and 200k books in hardback.

Tor Printed 11k of my book to start, and had to print 2k more in order to fill demand.  The numbers Ookla is giving us count for about 70% of the POS (Point of Sale--i.e. bookstores) market in the US.  They don't include Canada or library sales.

So, my book has sold around 4,300 copies via bookscan.  Small initial week sales, but also small drop off (indicating good word of mouth.)  That translates to around 6,100 copies POS, with perhaps another 1k copies in Canada and library sales.

That takes us to about 7000 copies sold.  My advance for this book was 10k.  With the money from the book club, I've so far earned around 20k in royalties--or, about double the advance.  

If I continue to sell an average of 50 books (bookscan) a week until the paperback comes out, we will be inching toward 9,750 copies sold in hardback, which will equate to a 75% sell-through of the novel's print run.  This is a very respectable number, about where a 'successful' book is expected to be.  

For a first time author, these are very good numbers.  Publishers don't expect to make a lot of money off of someone like me, they just want to get the name out.  However, I've done as well as a lot of old-timers have.  Other new authors aren't as lucky.

As a frame of reference, this book came out the same day that mine did.  You can compare sales rank numbers for it and for my novel:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060741503/ref=pd_sim_3/002-0382797-1574406?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0765311771/qid=1116370464/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-0382797-1574406?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

(Oh, and by the way, Eldon is LDS and a really great guy.  I haven't read the book, but I have a copy, and I'm hoping that his numbers pick up with the second novel.  He seems like a class act, very humble and interesting.)

[stacer]

Well, that's cool. Amazon has them bundled together for a deal. Do you think that's because people have been searching for you two at the same time since the conference?

[The Jade Knight]

To my knowledge, Amazon's "deals" aren't.  In other words, where it says "buy them together and save!" it's merely giving you the amount you would have saved off the list price by buying them separately.  I think it groups books by what's commonly searched/bought together.

[Spriggan]

They're also grouped together as a form of advertisement so sometimes publishers/companies will pay Amazon to group their item with another.

[Eric James Stone]

I read Eldon's book and enjoyed it.  I hope his sales pick up with the second and third books, because I understand he has a fairly large advance to earn out.

[Skar]

Thanks Brandon.  I understand.  Way to go!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Exact numbers through 25 Sept:

43      +/- percent
424      886.05%
454      7.08%
413      -9.03%
407      -1.45%
288      -29.24%
297      3.13%
234      -21.21%
236      0.85%
217      -8.05%
198      -8.76%
128      -35.35%
151      17.97%
114      -24.50%
129      13.16%
122      -5.43%
115      -5.74%
111      -3.48%
82      -26.13%
90      9.76%
80      -11.11%
62      -22.50%
64      3.23%

Total: 4459

Some moving 4-week totals, with % dropoff from week 1 to week 4:

1226      -27.80%
1055      -32.46%
984      -29.96%
885      -27.81%
779      -26.16%
694      -29.47%
591      -33.22%
522      -32.99%
516      -25.65%
480      -18.78%
477      -8.62%
430      -16.67%
398      -17.08%
363      -23.90%
314      -26.98%
296      -25.63%

4-week drops are speeding a bit.

[Spriggan]

Hey Ookla, just incase you didn't see it on Brandon's site, Elantris just got picked up in Japan.  We're one step closer to an Elantris Manga.

[EUOL]

Folks,

I'm going to get to the Nano thread and things later today.  Sorry I've been gone so much lately--life has been hectic.  I'll try and respond a bit more soon.

Right now, however, I was hoping that maybe Ookla could get one final batch of Bookscan numbers for me on ELANTRIS.  This would let me know how my signings during the last two weeks went.  

Ookla, any chance of that?  Thanks!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

yeah, sure. I hadn't realized we'd passed 5 weeks...or did I get the date wrong in that post? (Guess not.)

Anyway, do you want them Monday, or the new numbers Wednesday?

[EUOL]

Wednesday is fine, Ookla.

Oh, and how soon will you and Karen register for Worldcon next year?  I need twenty votes to get me nominated for the Campbell, and the only people who can nominate are those who are registered for the con by January first.

[stacer]

How much is it to register before Jan. 1st? Of course, I'll probably be going down courtesy of work next time, so it might not be a good idea to spend my own money on it.