A huge congratulations go to Maureen for winning Anthea's giveaway! Please email anthea@anthealawson.com with your snail mail info!
--Elaine
One of the questions authors get asked – especially right after a new book releases, is “How’s it
selling?”
I wish we knew! The truth is, there’s really no way to gauge sales unless you hit one of the ‘lists’ – New York Times or USA Today Bestseller being the biggest. Even then, those lists only count a small sampling of bookstores, and velocity of sales play a big part. Ironically, a title that sells a little slower, but ultimately more copies over the long run, doesn’t make the NYT list.
There are also the in-store lists, like B&N and Borders top sellers, the infamous Bookscan (which doesn’t count big box stores like Walmart, Fred Meyer, etc. where a lot of romance is sold) and various other outfits that claim to track sales numbers. There is really no way to get the big picture, which in the age of digital tracking is somewhat surprising.
Oh, some authors watch their Amazon ranking a bit obsessively (ahem), but of course Amazon sales are only a fraction of actual sales, and nobody knows what the correlation is between Amazon figures and retail sales.
Another indication that your book is selling well is if it goes to a second printing close on the 
heels of, or even before, your release date. Then again, maybe the publisher just didn’t print enough copies the first time around. Most authors will know their ‘ship’ numbers before the book is released – that’s the number of books pre-ordered and shipped out to bookstores. More and more, publishers are basing the print run off the pre-orders, which means smaller runs for authors.
So, when will we know how our book is selling? The hard truth is it takes about a year after release for publishers to really know—and sometimes even longer for authors to get that information. (We’re STILL waiting for solid numbers on our debut book, PASSIONATE – it came out October 2008.) That’s due to the (arguably archaic) business model that publishing uses, which is that stores can return unsold books for full credit months after the book has been published. Those don’t count as sales, of course, but there can be a trickle, or flood, of returns for up to a year after publication.
So what do we do, as authors? We trust that our new book is finding happy readers (we love getting reader e-mail confirming the fact), and we try not to worry too much. And when people ask “how’s that book selling?” we give them a big smile and say, “Great!” Because it may be true, who knows?
We’re giving away a copy of PASSIONATE to one lucky commenter. Let us know – where do you
like to buy your books? Bookstores? Amazon? Used? The supermarket? Kindle or other e-versions?
~~~
Anthea Lawson is the pseudonym for a husband-wife team who write spicy Victorian romance. Their debut novel, PASSIONATE, was nominated for a Best First Book RITA in 2009, and their newest book, ALL HE DESIRES, released on November 3rd. Visit their website, http://www.anthealawson.com for all their latest news!
