After reading yet another online discussion of self-publishing and publishing through small independent presses, I started thinking, and I wondered, how do people buy books? Where do most sales happen?
Turns out that a few months ago, Publishers Weekly summarized the results of a survey about U.S. books sales. I was a little bit surprised by the results, and once again reminded of the importance of bookstores.
In a nutshell, the survey found the following breakdown:
Direct sales (book fairs, conferences, etc.) = 3% of total sales
Book clubs = 12%
This surprised me, as I didn’t think that book clubs were still so big. But then I thought about Harlequin and all of their imprints that members receive on a monthly basis, and thought, that makes sense that genre book clubs might be doing well if readers regularly buy the new releases and like the convenience of home delivery.
Internet sales = 20%
This number also surprised me: only two of ten books purchased in the U.S. are purchased online. I would have expected this to be higher.
Total of direct sales, book clubs, and Internet sales = 35% of total sales
That’s pretty impressive. But if you think about it, that means bookstores account for 65% of total sales.
Sixty-five percent. That’s a huge chunk of total book sales.
This is extremely important because so many small presses rely on wholesalers and online book retailers for their total book sales, yet online sales account for only two of every ten books sold. Presence in brick-and-mortal bookstores is still critical for book sales.
So authors: when you’re choosing a publisher, make sure you can find their books in stores, on the shelves. This means the publisher has a distributor who is actively working to make your books available to consumers where most book sales are made.
ETA: As mentioned above, this survey represents the U.S. only. My understanding is that online sales make up a much larger proportion of total sales in the UK; I have no idea about other locations.
Unfortunately, presence in the brick-and-mortars isn’t that easy to get, if you’re talking the chain stores. There aren’t a lot of real examples floating around, but the difference between presence in the independent bookstores vs the chains (Borders, etc) can mean an order of magnitude in an author’s sales figures.
Also, dear intrepid authors, don’t trust the publisher to tell you acurately who their ‘distributors’ are. As I think this blog pointed out before?? Some of our little niche publishers miscategorizes wholesalers as distributors.
Unfortunately, presence in the brick-and-mortars isn’t that easy to get
All the more reason to go with a publisher who’s already got a presence in those stores. Like it or not, publishing is a business. For those writers who don’t care about business and who just want to market to a small group of family and friends, then something like lulu.com is both sufficient and cost effective. But for writers who want their published work to reach a wide audience, choosing a publisher who gets books into bookstores, which in turn put them into the hands of readers, is essential.
This is why I tend to recommend that new authors not self-publish. Not only do they have to bear the full cost of editing, design, and graphic design, but they have the full-time job of marketing and promotion. Not an easy road to take.
And yes, unfortunately some of the smaller publishers are started by people who either don’t know or take advantage of authors who don’t know about the business side of publishing, and they misuse the vocabulary. Then again, some of these niche publishers claim they’re using technical editors for works of general fiction.
::rolls eyes::