It just takes a handful of folks who get really excited about a work and promote it heavily to get book sales going. Until we see a dozen people who are ‘strongly recommending’ the book, all the promotions in the world don’t seem to help. The goal, of course, is to get on a “Best Seller” list.
The NYT best seller list is a great example. It routinely includes books that sell only 1,000 copies, and once a book is listed on that “Best Seller” list, it typically sees a 15-20% INCREASE in sales the following week as people want to read what is popular. Best Sellers beget Best Sellers. However, selling 1,000+ copies and getting the book on to the “Best Seller” list is actually very difficult. Over 100,000 books are published each year, and over 3 Million are in active print. The number which make the best seller list is actually no more than 1%. That’s a bit of a gut punch. 99% of the published works will not sell even 1,000 copies. so getting a “Best Seller” turns out to be rather difficult. Want some real numbers? Here is some cold hard data from books that McKinney Publishing has published last year:
Book 1: sold 0 copies. Rank #998,329 (that’s the bottom of the barrel I’m afraid.)
Book 2: sold 18 copies. Rank #4,309 (Amazing leak from just a few copies sold! That means like 900,000 books published didn’t even sell 18 copies last year!)
Book 3: sold 73 copies. Rank #1,434 (not bad…)
Book 4: sold 574 copies. Rank #201 (wow! not top 10 to make the list, but still. Only 200 other books sold even this much last year in this category!)
Some have tried to ‘buy’ their way onto the list, literally. They purchase 1,000 copies (or more) of their own book AT RETAIL STORES to rig the system. However, the NYT has gotten enough mud on their face from this that they will now ‘flag’ or remove books from the list that they think are being inflated by manipulation.
Some have tried to ‘buy’ promoters. This is very popular these days, as you can pay a YouTube personality to review and recommend you book to their 10 millions subscribers. However, unless you have a book that is of interest to these young and modern crowds who get their news from YouTube, it may not work so well.
Both of these cost significant amounts of up front expenditures as well.
The other way to sell books, and the best way, is for the author to be out talking about the subject. When folks here you talking about the subject and want to hear more, the author can direct them to where to purchase a copy. Experience has shown that when a author is active in the community, and in particular is active in talking about their book subject matter with others, it leads to interest and sales. Once an author withdraws from public life, or dies, the book is dependent on another individual to ‘take up the cause’ and talk about it with others. You are your best (and most cost effective) marketing team! You are a published author! That is something to talk about. And it might just pay royalties in the end.