My last post, on Google adding maps to its Google Books pages, generated some interesting discussion about digitizing books in the comments. I can think of many reasons why digitizing books is a good thing, while the motivations of the publishing houses and the Authors Guild in suing Google seem confused at best and craven at worst.One of the reasons why digitizing books is important is that it preserves the knowledge contained between the covers. Our libraries are filled with fragile books that require tremendous upkeep and are not as useful to students, scholars, and readers as they could be. This rationale is behind a new $2 million digitizing program at the Library of Congress that will focus on “brittle books.” Among the books slated to be digitized are “American history volumes, U.S. genealogy and regimental histories that hold personal collections from the Civil War period, and six collections of rare books including the Benjamin Franklin Collection.”Some may argue that this is apples and oranges, that publishers and Authors Guild are only interested protecting writers working now, but the lawsuits have in fact targeted the Google Books Library Project, not the Google Books Partner Program, which they are largely on board with. Those attacking Google charge that the company is running afoul of copyright law by scanning library books in their entirety even if Google only makes snippets of them available to the public, and, as Jeffrey Toobin’s insightful article in the New Yorker makes clear, these suits threaten to cause a ripple effect that might not be in the public’s best interest. Whatever the outcome of these suits, let’s at least hope that our most fragile books get saved for posterity.
Max,
How do those numbers compare to average weekend sales figures for the actual, physical book? Any idea?
It's tough to know for sure, obviously the numbers vary widely and publishers are notoriously tight-lipped about sales numbers, but Jynne Martin did also tell me this: "quite amazing considering most debut novels don't even sell 10,000 copies in their whole lifespan"
Richard Ford's Lay of the Land, not considered a "big seller" compared to his earlier books, sold 51,000 in hardcover and 36,000 in paper. Those are Nielsen BookScan numbers which track about 70% of sales and were reported in a recent NYT piece on Ford.
So, that's just a random recent comparison but it offers a little perspective.
My sources tell me Random House would consider 50,000ish copies sold over the life of the hardcover to be a success. This could be utter bushwa, given that I've only heard the darkest murmurs about the amount of advance money tied up in the book.
How do those numbers compare to average weekend sales figures for the actual, physical book? Any idea?
A lot more. 15,000 copies in one week would be in the top ten on the Times list. Watch the list this week and see if it moves up or down from 38 and that should give you a sense of whether it worked or not.
Honestly, I very much doubt that one week will show the effect of this. The download event got this novel a ton of exposure and spread it's name. Along with all the other publicity — the features, the mostly positive and very positive reviews, the general discussion and buzz around this book and its merits or lack thereof — it seems more than possible that this will be a title people remember and check out, either in hardback or paper form.
I don't think comparing a first novel's sales to the sales of Richard Ford's sequel to his pulitzer prize-winning novel is necessarily fair. I also don't think that judging this promotion in a week is particularly shrewd. Most successful books need to be passed from one person to another, or have a special air to them. This novel seems to have a chance at being one of those books.
Thanks for the input from all three anonymous commenters. I particularly agree with this sentiment: "I also don't think that judging this promotion in a week is particularly shrewd. Most successful books need to be passed from one person to another, or have a special air to them."
For those still interested in the numbers involved here, USA Today offers a little more color: "Nielsen Book-Scan, which tracks about 70% of book sales, reports 12,000 sales as of Feb. 27. The publisher says the novel is in its seventh printing, with 50,000 copies in print."
So it's possible that the number of books downloaded from the Random House site alone equaled or surpassed the total number of book sales thus far.
yes, I saw that USA today article yesterday. So 12,000 by Feb 27th, a little over a month after publication which they said is perfectly solid sales for a new author no one has heard of.
But with bock, he received a spread in the NY Times magazine followed the next week by NY times book review cover. So that means about 2500-3000 per week (with maybe a spike just after the cover to say 4,000? I guess this is what got it on the bestseller?).
Interesting to see that all it takes is 4,000 sales in a week to get on the bestseller list. Then even though his book dropped off the list, he can forever more say it was a "bestseller." Always interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff. I'm surprised RH allowed that to be printed because it shows that the book isn't really selling like it should be.
Most publishers have issues with the tracker numbers. Last month Riverhead made a point of saying how off the BookScan numbers were on Oscar Wao. I wouldn't make too big a deal about it.
"Most publishers have issues with the tracker numbers."
Not really. Many editors do, but then editors are often shocked at how their books are doing. Many, if not all marketing and sales people in the trade rely on bookscan.
well, bookscan reportedly reflects about 70% of sales, and it includes borders, b&n, amazon and sales from major independent bookstores. so I think bookscan numbers are a pretty big deal – and at the very least, they are the only hard numbers available for publishers to rely on.
Parse it however you want, but If a literary first novel sells 16K books during a five week period and also has 15K free downloads of it, that book is doing very very well, my friends.