I'm a middle grade author and I *still* struggle to figure out that market :p
But this is great, and fascinating! I also wonder how much the pandemic played into things. My debut came out in 2020, which obviously threw off both my and my publishers plans.
I don't know how the pandemic affected advances so much as book promotion. I do know that my agent was very smart about when exactly to go on sub that year. (I was ready to in March, but we put it off till the end of May--I heard people who went on sub later in the year had a harder time)
This is awesome! Thank you for writing it! It's so scary to think that sometimes there's nothing you can do to get your book to do well. Sometimes I feel like the best thing we can do is just write the best book that we can and hope for the best. But. I also like to think that by being proactive I can get my book into the hands of one more person. If one more person reads it then maybe I'll have done something right...
I don't buy ads or do social media really, but I know when I do book events that I can sell a few books based on how well I speak, and that those people might tell other people, and etc. etc. That's the organic word of mouth thing that is the most powerful mover of books.
Extremely interesting thinking here (especially the calculation that POC are earning publishers a better return because of the low investment up front…).
Wanted to drop that my goodreads -review-to-sales ratio is 16.52… my book was a front listed memoir-plus with major critical acclaim and I’ve done a lot of events. But for whatever reason it hasn’t been a goodreads success and has sold best in audio. So, I guess just adding the point that the calculation you used may not work over in nonfiction!
I don’t have any real data to prove this but I think good reads skews heavily towards young females. I noticed that James Patterson doesn’t have as many ratings as he should on goodreads. So I think the closer you are to that young female demographic, the smaller the ratio. That first book of mine definitely did
That would certainly make sense! Many women love my book but they’re people who are more likely to snub anything Amazon-owned, as the book is related to ethical supply chain issues. I also speak in cardiology, neuroethics, mining, and innovation spaces… definitely not Goodreads demographic.
Stellar and revealing piece. Self-publication looks better every day. Maybe all the writers need to take a page out of Taylor Swift's and Diane Warren's song books – own your own work, be your own publisher, call your shots and make your money and never look back. Thank you for this.
It is genuinely awful how bad of a job the whole industry does at making writers understand this reality. Publishing houses have taken this sort of buckshot approach, where most books fail and the houses make their cut for their year on a small handful of massive sellers, since the time of Dickens. But it's a scenario designed to make most people who write books feel like losers, and nobody seems to think it's their job to explain to them that this is how it's always worked.
this is my second article of yours and it’s fire. 2 for 2, just subbed. great content
I love a good data deep dive. Thank you! This was so fascinating.
Have you ever checked that good reads review equation for sales guesstimates against bookscan? I’m always curious how far off Circana is.
I would like to but I don’t have access to bookscan or circana. Amazon used to have bookscan numbers for my books but no longer does
Fascinating insights, thank you!
Thank you for your transparency
I'm a middle grade author and I *still* struggle to figure out that market :p
But this is great, and fascinating! I also wonder how much the pandemic played into things. My debut came out in 2020, which obviously threw off both my and my publishers plans.
I don't know how the pandemic affected advances so much as book promotion. I do know that my agent was very smart about when exactly to go on sub that year. (I was ready to in March, but we put it off till the end of May--I heard people who went on sub later in the year had a harder time)
This is awesome! Thank you for writing it! It's so scary to think that sometimes there's nothing you can do to get your book to do well. Sometimes I feel like the best thing we can do is just write the best book that we can and hope for the best. But. I also like to think that by being proactive I can get my book into the hands of one more person. If one more person reads it then maybe I'll have done something right...
I don't buy ads or do social media really, but I know when I do book events that I can sell a few books based on how well I speak, and that those people might tell other people, and etc. etc. That's the organic word of mouth thing that is the most powerful mover of books.
Extremely interesting thinking here (especially the calculation that POC are earning publishers a better return because of the low investment up front…).
Wanted to drop that my goodreads -review-to-sales ratio is 16.52… my book was a front listed memoir-plus with major critical acclaim and I’ve done a lot of events. But for whatever reason it hasn’t been a goodreads success and has sold best in audio. So, I guess just adding the point that the calculation you used may not work over in nonfiction!
I don’t have any real data to prove this but I think good reads skews heavily towards young females. I noticed that James Patterson doesn’t have as many ratings as he should on goodreads. So I think the closer you are to that young female demographic, the smaller the ratio. That first book of mine definitely did
That would certainly make sense! Many women love my book but they’re people who are more likely to snub anything Amazon-owned, as the book is related to ethical supply chain issues. I also speak in cardiology, neuroethics, mining, and innovation spaces… definitely not Goodreads demographic.
Stellar and revealing piece. Self-publication looks better every day. Maybe all the writers need to take a page out of Taylor Swift's and Diane Warren's song books – own your own work, be your own publisher, call your shots and make your money and never look back. Thank you for this.
It is genuinely awful how bad of a job the whole industry does at making writers understand this reality. Publishing houses have taken this sort of buckshot approach, where most books fail and the houses make their cut for their year on a small handful of massive sellers, since the time of Dickens. But it's a scenario designed to make most people who write books feel like losers, and nobody seems to think it's their job to explain to them that this is how it's always worked.
Writers have to educate themselves— especially about money
This is really fascinating! Would love another round of #PublishingPaidMe.
“while a midlist author who sold okay or even strongly can have trouble getting a book deal at all” it’s is me. I am midlist author 🫠🫠
This was a great post.