Most Books Don't Do Well... But Your Book is Different From Most

BookMarketing.pro with Bo Bennett, PhD

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What are the chances that any given book will do well? How about even sell just a few copies (outside of family and friends)? Statistically speaking, not very good at all. But don't despair because the odds for your book are much better.

I am no more a literary critic than the next guy. I don't read every book we promote, so I can't accurately determine the probability of any given book's success. However, over the last decade, I have published and marketed several thousand books, and I have a very good sense of which books will almost certainly fail based on the cover, topic, and a preliminary skim through the book (and I make sure my clients with books doomed for failure know this). As for the vast majority of books that don't "suck" but still don't sell well, these books are indistinguishable from best-sellers, at least without reading the books cover to cover. The good news is that your book has a better chance of success than most. I am not saying this to flatter you; I am saying this for a scientific reason, which I will get to. But first, I want to hammer home the point that individual critic's opinions mean very little when it comes to the success of your book.

Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling

Many authors are familiar with J.K. Rowling's rise to fame and how many publishers rejected the first Harry Potter book. Imagine that a publisher actually read her book and said, "No thanks. I don't think this has potential." As both a social psychologist and a book marketing expert, I can say that a single person's evaluation of a book is a relatively poor indicator of a book's success. "The market" determines the success of the book. This "market" is the collection of readers who will support the book through their purchases and sharing the book with others. If publishers who evaluate books for a living can't see that Harry Potter is a book with potential after reading the whole book, then what right do I have to tell someone that their book doesn't have potential after just skimming it? Sure, I can make suggestions on how to make the book better, (e.g., a better cover, proofread the damn thing!, etc.) but I shouldn't discourage anyone from exposing their book to the market and seeing if it is well-received or not. And I don't.

Insider Information from an Industry... Insider

I see the sales figures for over 5000 books every month. While I won't share any personal information, I will say that only about 1 out of 10 books published sell more than a few copies. Granted, most of these clients do little or nothing for marketing and promotion but even those who do invest a moderate amount into marketing don't all see the kind of return they are hoping for. This is an extremely competitive industry. There are countless millions of books for readers to choose from and limited time to read. Having a book that makes the author decent money month after month is quite rare.

Selection Bias: Why Your Book Will Likely Do Better Than Most

The vast majority of authors don't promote their books. One of the reasons is that an author is not willing to invest time and money into a book that they clumsily threw together and wrote "for themselves." Many of these books are nothing more than streams of consciousness that resemble a meandering blog post, not worthy of promotion—and the author knows it. In fact, if you are even reading this post, you are likely one of the authors who care about their book, which says quite a bit about the quality of the book and, ultimately, the chances for its success. If you get to the point where you are willing to invest in your book, then you have already surpassed about 90% of the authors who do nothing for their books besides write and publish them.

Effort, Persistence, and Hope

I write this not to discourage authors but to set their expectations. One thing I can guarantee is that if a book is never promoted, it will almost certainly fail. I think this best can be summed up by a classic anecdote that I will adapt to book marketing:

There was a priest who wrote a book that he desperately wanted to be a best seller. He prayed to God, "God, please help my book become a best seller!" He would pray day after day, month after month, and year after year. Finally, one day he was fed up and yelled, "God, I spent my life serving you and I ask you for this one thing. Why won't you help me?" Just then, he heard a booming voice coming from the sky, "Priest, meet me halfway: promote your book!"

If you don't play the game, you're never going to win. Playing the game includes marketing and promoting your book and exposing it to as many people as you can. If the book is good and clicks with readers, then it will continue to sell due to organic growth long after the promotions have ended. Marketing your book not only takes effort, but persistence and a little hope or faith in yourself and your book.