USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -At the top end, only 0.4% of books sold 100k copies or more. For a book to be commercially viable, it needs to sell over 5, 000 copies. The more frightening statistic is that 86% of books published sell less than the magic 5k break-even number. The fact is, most books don’t sell a lot of copies and don’t make any money.

Detailed explanation-2: -Of the 500, 000+ books that are published each year, less than 20 books sell a million copies (and that includes fiction novels!) Upon hearing that, you might think your odds are 1 in 25, 000… But your odds are even lower than that.

Detailed explanation-3: -The average book in America sells about 500 copies. Those blockbusters are a minute anomaly: only 10 books sold more than a million copies last year, and fewer than 500 sold more than 100, 000.

Detailed explanation-4: -It should be easy for you to get another book contract. If you sold more than 5, 000, you are doing pretty well. You’ll probably sell your next book somewhere. If you sold less than 5, 000, then you could be in trouble with the next book.