Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

countercraft.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 143 posts

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#31

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #19
evandwight wrote: post #4

>>>0.4% or 163 books sold 100,000 copies or more >>>0.7% or 320 books sold between 50,000-99,999 copies >>>2.2% or 1,015 books sold between 20,000-49,999 copies >>>3.4% or 1,572 books sold between 10,000-19,999 copies >>>5.5% or 2,518 books sold between 5,000-9,999 copies >>>21.6% or 9,863 books sold between 1,000-4,999 copies >>>51.4% or 23,419 sold between 12-999 copies >>>14.7% or 6,701 books sold under 12 copies…

BookScan isn't a reliable source of information unfortunately. It only counts when a book's ISBN is physically scanned over a scanner (no ebook, audio book, libraries, specialty sales, etc) and also only covers 75% of retail in general. Generally, you can bet BookScan largely undercounts by a very wide margin.

The majority of books written don't even get published - so the majority of books are definitely read by less than 12 people.

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#32

Post by AlbertCory »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #24
AlbertCory wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you limit your data to those published by (fairly) large publishers, you've already skewed the data irreparably. Most of them won't even look at a book unless an agent brings it to them, and most agents won't represent most would-be authors. On the other hand, some technical books don't require agents, and O'Reilly has to be a very large publisher in terms of books sold. Some other categories don't, either -- I…

> On the other hand, some technical books don't require agents, and O'Reilly has to be a very large publisher in terms of books sold. I think you are drastically over-estimating the share of developers that read software development related books. Out of the 150+ software engineers I worked with on a daily basis throughout my career so far, I can guarantee you not even 5% have ever read programming books (and I work…

well, you have a different 150 than I do, I'm afraid, and I was also at a FAANG. A really high percentage of people I know have O'Reilly books on their shelves.

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#33

Post by Gigachad »

keyle wrote: post #12

The whole 2% makes 95% of all revenues doesn't just apply to books... it certainly is true for the video game industry, and I suspect, most of the industries being sold online.

On video game sales, I find it interesting how successful games can be while being 90% the same as an existing established game.

I’m not coming at this from some kind of ethics/copyright perspective, I think it’s totally fine to rehash the same idea. I’m just surprised they sell so well when I look and think “why would I buy this, I basically already have it”. The particular example I’m thinking of is a series called Overcooked which is a co op time management game and right now one of the hot sellers on steam is called Plate Up which seems to be basically the same thing at a similar level of polish.

The real learning I guess is to not be discouraged by existing products, because they don’t seem to prevent you from succeeding even when you can’t quite define why yours is better than the rest.

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#34

Post by mannykannot »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #31
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BookScan isn't a reliable source of information unfortunately. It only counts when a book's ISBN is physically scanned over a scanner (no ebook, audio book, libraries, specialty sales, etc) and also only covers 75% of retail in general. Generally, you can bet BookScan largely undercounts by a very wide margin.

The majority of books written don't even get published - so the majority of books are definitely read by less than 12 people.

This way of looking at it might justify the statistic, but at the cost of making it uninteresting.

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#35

Post by Taniwha »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #19
evandwight wrote: post #4

>>>0.4% or 163 books sold 100,000 copies or more >>>0.7% or 320 books sold between 50,000-99,999 copies >>>2.2% or 1,015 books sold between 20,000-49,999 copies >>>3.4% or 1,572 books sold between 10,000-19,999 copies >>>5.5% or 2,518 books sold between 5,000-9,999 copies >>>21.6% or 9,863 books sold between 1,000-4,999 copies >>>51.4% or 23,419 sold between 12-999 copies >>>14.7% or 6,701 books sold under 12 copies…

BookScan isn't a reliable source of information unfortunately. It only counts when a book's ISBN is physically scanned over a scanner (no ebook, audio book, libraries, specialty sales, etc) and also only covers 75% of retail in general. Generally, you can bet BookScan largely undercounts by a very wide margin.

The above numbers are from her response in the comments in the original article, it's worth reading that to understand how those numbers are made up, she explains in depth

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#36

Post by _0ffh »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #24
AlbertCory wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you limit your data to those published by (fairly) large publishers, you've already skewed the data irreparably. Most of them won't even look at a book unless an agent brings it to them, and most agents won't represent most would-be authors. On the other hand, some technical books don't require agents, and O'Reilly has to be a very large publisher in terms of books sold. Some other categories don't, either -- I…

> On the other hand, some technical books don't require agents, and O'Reilly has to be a very large publisher in terms of books sold. I think you are drastically over-estimating the share of developers that read software development related books. Out of the 150+ software engineers I worked with on a daily basis throughout my career so far, I can guarantee you not even 5% have ever read programming books (and I work…

Is this the moment in the conversation where someone steps in to commend Fred Brooks and David Parnas?

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#38

Post by FalconSensei »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #19
evandwight wrote: post #4

>>>0.4% or 163 books sold 100,000 copies or more >>>0.7% or 320 books sold between 50,000-99,999 copies >>>2.2% or 1,015 books sold between 20,000-49,999 copies >>>3.4% or 1,572 books sold between 10,000-19,999 copies >>>5.5% or 2,518 books sold between 5,000-9,999 copies >>>21.6% or 9,863 books sold between 1,000-4,999 copies >>>51.4% or 23,419 sold between 12-999 copies >>>14.7% or 6,701 books sold under 12 copies…

BookScan isn't a reliable source of information unfortunately. It only counts when a book's ISBN is physically scanned over a scanner (no ebook, audio book, libraries, specialty sales, etc) and also only covers 75% of retail in general. Generally, you can bet BookScan largely undercounts by a very wide margin.

I would be interested to see kindle data for self-published

Re: Most books don't sell only a dozen copies

#39

Post by lillecarl »

Gigachad wrote: post #33
keyle wrote: post #12

The whole 2% makes 95% of all revenues doesn't just apply to books... it certainly is true for the video game industry, and I suspect, most of the industries being sold online.

On video game sales, I find it interesting how successful games can be while being 90% the same as an existing established game. I’m not coming at this from some kind of ethics/copyright perspective, I think it’s totally fine to rehash the same idea. I’m just surprised they sell so well when I look and think “why would I buy this, I basically already have it”. The particular example I’m thinking of is a series called…

Ofc this depends on the industry, people in infrastructure for example prefer battle tested tools so breaking into the market is harder and requires a significant investment. Same with game engines, people don't write them these days.
Post reply on HN