October 14, 2004
book thoughts
Heard recently from a publishing insider that the average book is lucky to sell 6,000 copies.
That number struck a chord with me– 6000 is about how many unique visitors I get at gapingvoid every day. Sometimes more, sometimes less etc.
Sure, you get money from a book, but to make it also costs you two years of your life. I guess I concur with Cormac McCarthy’s advice to young writers: “Don’t write unless you have to.“
I’ve been neglecting the book recently, but I’m starting to think about it some more…
[UPDATE:] Earlier I mentioned something about wanting to move to Silicon Valley and join The Revolution. Since then I’ve started working with some folk out there. Cool work, too. No need to move there yet, though. I’m still enamored with my cybercafe model.
Markets are conversations. Markets are conversations. Who you talk to decides what food you put on the table…
CAVEAT: After you reach a certain size the “conversation” stops behaving like a thing and starts behaving like a metaphor.
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Hugh, you’re missing the point.
You don’t write a book to reach millions. You write a book because you want to say something that only the medium, the context, the human releationship with a book, can give.
I’m talking about the writer’s human relationship with the book as they write it, not just the relationship the reader has as he or she reads it.
If you look at human communication only in terms of numbers, time efficiency and making a buck, you’ll never write a book. You also have to get happy (or at least OK) with the idea of not having a constant sounding board (i.e. your six thousand web visitors) for your stream of communication thinking/tapping away on your computer.
Delayed gratification = putting your ego on hold = the chance to develop talent = a scarce thing in our push button age
“You don’t write a book to reach millions. You write a book because you want to say something that only the medium, the context, the human releationship with a book, can give.“
In theory, you are correct. In actuality, a lot of people want to write books because they want the supposed fame, fortune and literary groupies “the writer’s life” affords them.
But there’s a lot of grey area between the two…
The world (and world of publishing) IS a grey area, I agree. But although I haven’t read Cormac McCarthy’s advice to young writers (and maybe advice to those of a more advanced age), I suspect that his line “Don’t write unless you have to” has more to do with the desire to communicate than the desire to embrace the cliched idea of the celebrated literary artist.
I would concur, Ben.
Hugh,
Another thing is that, of those 6,000 visitors, how many actually read and absorb the blog posts? The unique visitors may or may not be reading your postings, whereas, when people purchase a book (or e-book), they intend to read it or give it to someone who does.
Unless we all get so lazy we stop reading anything over three paragraphs, books will always have their place.
And while I am one of those people who really love to write, I choose not to condemn someone else for writing for money or fame, or whatever the reason, any more than I condemn the business owner for starting a business to make money, and not purely for the love of business. There are virtually tons of reasons people choose careers, and sometimes we, as writers or artists, can be a bit pedantic in how we “police” our profession.
Aleah -
I didn’t imply condemnation of Hugh’s motivations. As I’ve said before there’s nothing wrong with making money.
What I was pointing out was what I considered Hugh’s re-contextualising of McCarthy’s advice to illustrate his opinion about whether to write a book or not and how that related to his current gaping void audience.
While the size of Hugh’s audience and the success of an average book is an intriguing comparison, there are better ways to back up/illustrate your perspective on a subject.
6000 copies of a book on average, eh? Does that mean the average book is only good enough to appeal to 6000 people, or the average book can only be marketed adequately to 6000 people?
Or, on, average, are there only 6000 regular book readers in the world? Because I find that hard to believe.
Methinks you could sell more than 6000 copies of a book if you had something worth reading that actually attempted to find its market.
Ben,
I’m sorry, I wasn’t addressing your post at all, in fact. I was directing the comment to Hugh, hence the opening: Hugh,
Cheers,
A
The people who write only for money, fame, etc. usually aren’t able to stay motivated long enough to write and publish a book. There are much easier ways to make money and get famous.
The average book sells only about 6000 copies for complicated reasons mostly having to do with the economics of shipping atoms around. Every copy that you print but don’t sell costs money. So you print only the number of copies that you feel absolutely certain you can sell. Which means that many people who might buy the book will never even know it exists. Internet marketing and distribution will change the equation, I think, but haven’t yet.
(Also, sales behavior is very different for fiction vs. non-fiction. Best to know which someone is talking about before drawing conclusions.)