There’s this tendency for non-writers to ask how many books you sold. And as an author, that question always causes a spike in anxiety.
Why?
Most authors wish more copies of their book sold. Plain and simple.
We’re happy to have sold the copies we’ve sold, of course we are, because that means people are reading our work.
But many of us want to do this full time, and selling 50 or 100 copies of a book does not a full time wage make.
So, as happy as we are to sell any copies, there’s always the weight of not selling enough to be a full time author hanging about our shoulders.
Many non-writers are unaware of what it takes to manage to sell even just a handful of books (or how many $2-$5 royalties it takes to make a living wage). Even without considering the writing, editing, formatting, metadata and publishing (if indie), querying (if traditional), there’s an absolute shit ton of work that goes into selling books.
Months, or years, of social media posts. Newsletters, networking with other authors, blog tours, and Instagram tours.
Then, there’s advertising, which is a hellscape, in and of itself. So many authors (myself included) hate advertising because it feels as if there’s just too much to learn, and if you do it wrong, you’re literally just dumping money down the drain.
It’s intimidating.
And then, of course, there’s the vicious cycle of being afraid to check your sales and your ads (even though it’s necessary to tweak ads to get them to actually work), thus leading to ads running and doing nothing, then finally getting up the nerve to check them (or giving in to the shame/self-blame of knowing we’re not doing what we should, thus finally checking the ads) and seeing that they’ve done nothing, because they haven’t been adjusted. Which just hurts and confirms the self-doubt we all harbor.
Writing is a very vulnerable process.
We’re basically putting ourselves on the market, because a lot of ourselves go into our books, not to mention the time and effort to get them written and ready.
So, to all the non-writers reading this, if a book is selling well, the author will let you know. They’ll be ecstatic.
And even if they aren’t chomping at the bit to tell you, it’ll likely appear on material promoting the book. Because selling a lot of copies is actually a good tool to sell more books.
That’s why you see awards on book covers or the title “USA Today Bestselling Author” or “New York Times Bestselling Author” above author names. It’s a tool to sell more books, to let you know that you can trust that book and that author because so many other people already have.
So, please, if you know an author, don’t stress them with talk of sales. If you’re curious about the fact that they write, ask about the main character of the book they’re working on/just released.
For all the authors out there wishing you’d sold more copies and comparing your numbers to the whole “most books sell less than 250 copies” thing, don’t forget that this average includes all the bestsellers, who skew that number quite a bit.
Look at your audience (excluding follow loop numbers), and 5% of that number is where you should aim for preorders. If you get that (or exceed that) then not only are you doing just fine, you should celebrate.
Like… a lot.
Keep reading. Keep writing.
Later.
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