The more I read and discover about how bookselling works, and how some folks want to change it while others want it to remain the same, the more mystified I am about certain elements of the sales and recognition system, most particularly the rubric of what constitutes success.
What constitutes great success in selling a book? Making a list. It’s not even making money, though that’s obviously an understood necessity. Everyone likes making money. But book sales success is making a list. Or, THE list (The New York Times, specifically).
From where I’m sitting, this has to be the most bizarre and short-sighted system in which to recognize an author and a book, topped only by closing one’s eyes and pointing at a bookshelf to pick Book of the Year.
Consider the ever-changing, completely nonsensical rubric represented by The List. An author releases a book, along with a few bazillion other people. Within a specific format or genre in the space of one week, this author sells more books than anyone else, and bam, this author makes The List. Could be 10 when everyone sold 6. Could be ten bazilliodrillion when everyone else sold 9. Whatever. This author sells more, and this author makes The List. Maybe her fans party like rockstars at the bookstore, storming the local chain store to find their copies of her new release, and stay up all night reading it, and then… the next week? If that author’s fans have all bought their copies and sales drop back off to a much lower level, that author won’t be on The List anymore. But that doesn’t matter! If that author made it once she gets to use the almighty banner of publishing power: New York Times Bestseller. Orders go up, the finest meats and cheese are brought in, along with the noise, and possibly the funk.
Now, I fully recognize that to make The List, we are talking some serious sales – but the number of sales that making The List represents could change by significant amounts week to week. It’s not as if there’s one threshold of success.
To make The List, in essence, a book shoots its wad in the space of a week, collapses in exhaustion, and that is what is held as the pinnacle of success.
There’s medication for that phenomenon for males, is what I’m saying.
But if a book starts off ok, and manages to make consistently good sales for years, never really hitting A List or The List, but hitting a threshold such that the author receives money in royalties for years and years… that’s awesome! No one sneezes as lifelong royalty checks. But there’s no measurement of success that accommodates or includes that longevity of sales. There is no cumulative indicator of success for books.
Conversely, and I do dislike comparing books to the music industry because nothing is ever that simple, but bear with me here: if a record album sells and sells and keeps on selling… it might reach gold status. Then platinum. Then multi-platinum. What’s more, everyone in the industry in the US knows what that means: Gold is (at this time) 500,000 units, platinum is 1,000,000, multi-platinum is 2,000,000 – cumulatively. The certification can vary by country and by region, especially because of population variances, but looking specifically at the US, there is a cumulative sales standard.
What’s more, songs are awarded gold and platinum status for downloads as ring tones. (You can see where I’m going with that, right?)
Yes, I realize that the RIAA certification has its own wtfery, and that platinum status for an album has been declared based on units shipped and not on actual sales, and yes there are flaws and blah blah blah yackety schmackety.
My point is: why is there no cumulative recognition for book sales? Why is there no measurement equivalent to gold/platinum status for books? Platinum record status means, to the consumer, a fuckton of copies of this CD exists in many, many cars and on many many iPods. LOTS of people are listening to or own this album. Why not a platinum book, which means a bodrillion people have or are reading it over the last few years?
Why is the highest pinnacle of book sales and recognition to shoot a wad once instead of long and continued turgid success? Why in the name of potpourri is success measured with so underperforming a stick? Why is there no measurement for cumulative sales for books so that authors and publishing houses can use that as an additional method on which to market current and future books? I would love to celebrate authors and books that maintain sales for years, whose books remain in print because they are discovered and rediscovered by readers. How is it not possible to acknowledge and celebrate those cumulative success stories? How do we make it so?
If there’s a way of negotiating making the list in contract, I don’t know about it.
And category books can make the NYT. Several of mine did back in the day, and there are others.
Tons of category books make the list. Just read it.
Making the list can’t be negotiated into a contract—unless the publisher is going to send mercenaries out with guns to force people to buy the book. Publishers can help placement and discounts, which help sales.
What is negotiated are kickers in the advance for making the list at various levels.
Lists are a by-product. It goes back to write a damn good book. The publishing business, like everything else, is in turmoil. Whatever evolves—whether traditional publishing merges with technology, gets run over like the music business did by Napster, or aliens invade and blow up New York City—people will still want good stories, even as they’re huddled in their caves.
I think the lists resonate so much because they’re seen as a form of validation. Given that much of the feedback I received in my recent Warrior Writer course was that many writers (both unpublished and especially published—in fact the more successful, the higher this is) fear being found out that they are ‘frauds’, they look outward for some sign that they aren’t. To overcome the feeling of being a fraud, you have to look inward because you don’t control the ‘lists’. You control what you do and as writers, that’s write.
My understanding is that one of the reasons for not tracking these sorts of things is that many “classics” outsell most new releases. Do you include novels ordered for educational purposes in “sales” lists?
I don’t know if accurate numbers would help things. Classical music basically died as a mainstream genre once the real sales numbers became known.
A thought-provoking post. I read it yesterday, then in today’s Sydney Morning Herald there was this article about the year’s bestselling books in Oz:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/meyer-takes-a-bite-out-of-top-20/2010/01/01/1261982389754.html
It is sourced from BookScan. While it only covers a year, that’s notably longer than a week or a month.
Another way to gauge popular books is checking PLR lists, Public Lending Right. There is an example here from Australia:
http://www.arts.gov.au/books/lending_rights/highest_scoring_books_plr
Althugh it’s a couple of years old, it includes books published some years earlier – eg. Looking for Alibrandi, an excellent YA title, was originally published in 1992 and is still in the top 10 (it’s also interesting to note how many of the books are children/YA titles).
One of the major bookshop chains here in Australia, Angus and Robertson, does a public-voted Top 100 every year or two. With over 26000 votes, it’s got a reasonable number (we have less people than the US, remember!), although statistically it’s not necessarily reliable,. Still, it features older and newer books. Current Top 100 is here:
http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/top-100/
Having said all that, I do rather like the idea of gold and platinum. Given the variety in editions/ISBNs, it would relate to a specific market (eg. the US or Australia or the UK) rather than one title everywhere.
It’s still hard to beat a recommendation from a trusted source, such as a knowledgeable bookseller, enthusiastic librarian, keen friend or a blog that hasn’t let you down…
I know I’ve followed up titles mentioned in comments here at SB.
Maybe this is a topic for another post on SB, but it would be interesting to know which were readers’ top 5 or 10 romance novels (or series) – their platinum list.
My platinum list?
1. almost any of Georgette Heyer’s Regencies (if pushed, I’ll say Venetia, The Grand Sophy or A Civil Contract).
2. Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
3. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
4. Lord of Scoundrels (Loretta Chase)
5. Southern Vampire/True Blood series (Charlaine Harris)
(I should have noted that the Australian PLR list includes only Australian authors.)
Great post, Sarah.
One of my favorite fantasy writers, Barbara Hambly, just started last month selling short stories online-only – old ones that have reverted back to her, new ones that aren’t going to be published on paper, etc. As a fan, that’s really exciting – I’m sure not every writer wants to deal with all the details of sales, but there are a lot of midlist authors out there whose stuff goes OOP despite a solid fan base, and maybe who can’t even get their new books published under their own names anymore.
SF/F seems to be going more to the subscription/self online publishing while romance is going more to online publishing houses, but both of them are a big jump in accessibility for readers.
Awesome Post! I love it and agree full heartily.
While reading your article I wondered if media attention surrounding the music business and other entertainment outlets effect the lists. Quite honestly Bon Jovi, Beyonce, Taylor Swift…and on and on, are not only on the cover of many magazines, on the news, radio, that much exposure is bound to generate sales and grow their popularity. It’s not like authors, other than the few on The List, are in the media spotlight and although they promote their books, they are not exactly giving cookies to the paparazzi.
Sadly I also do not think people read as much as they listen to music, which supresses the art of writing and literature even further. A more advanced list would be super duper but I’m not sure how successful it would to a declining reading audience.
Is it possible to pay for a spot on The List???