The Numbers Game

There’s a discussion going on in a group of science fiction/fantasy authors that I belong to about whether or not the group should buy a membership to Bookscan. Nielson Bookscan (http://www.bookscan.com/about.html) tracks the numbers of actual books leaving bookstores that have signed up to be part of this service -- the majority of those being, to my understanding, big box chains. Right now the only people who have access to this information are publishers, who buy subscriptions.

As a lot of people have pointed out, there’s not much use in knowing these numbers. They’re not something that a writer has much power over changing. However, there is so much information that our publishers keep from us – not necessarily on purpose, but knowledge is power. Most authors, for instance, won’t talk openly about money – i.e., how much they got for an advance, how much they made in royalities – and so when one’s agent says, “Well, they’re offering $-,---“ you have no idea if blank is the fair going rate or not. You can ask your agent if the price is any good, but she’s likely to say something like, “Well, it’s what they’re offering,” and not say that she sold a similar book for twice (or half) the amount last week.

For the record, I’ve always been willing to share actual dollar figures when asked. I tell my students what I got on my first book (if only to watch their hopeful faces crumble as they ask, “Is that ALL?”)

Money is considered such a private affair that I don’t see that suddenly changing. It’s considered rude to talk about how much you made (even though lots of other professions have ways of tracking what’s a standard salary in their field). So, my feeling is if we, as authors, can get our hands on other comparative information – such as how book stores are reporting sales for books in our genre (Bookscan breaks up genre books pretty specifically – I only know because Tate’s first book, Tall, Dark & Dead made a best seller list in the sub-sub category of paranormal romance on Bookscan last year – previous to that I’d never even heard of them.) Though the numbers may be flawed (see: this Salon article: http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2002/06/25/bestsellers/index.html) it’s at least some indication as to how your book did in comparison to others in its genre.

Yeah, okay, this information is likely to be pretty depressing for the average mid-list author like myself, but I also think it can be helpful when it comes time to hit the negotiation table (especially, if you share the information with your agent.) It might mean that some authors who were expecting to make more, find the numbers indicating they should make less, but there are other factors to consider, such as how long someone’s been writing (one’s advances should always go up a little per book) and how lucky the publishers think they might be (see article below on how publishing is just one big crap shoot.)

Keep in mind, too, that most authors don’t have a clue how their book is doing. Royalty statements tend to only come when there’s money owed the author (though they’re supposed to come regardless) and not every book earns out. And, you don’t see these except quarterly, and even then usually months after the quarter has ended. People always ask me, “How’s the book doing?” and I inevitably have to reply, “I have no idea.” The other thing access to Bookscan would give authors is a sense of how a book is doing as the publishers know…. instead of months and months later, possibly even after the publisher has decided to pull the plug on a book and remainder it.

What do you think? Would you want to know how well you’re selling?