Dear Publisher: My Present Publisher Isn’t Selling Enough of My Books

There are some questions I get asked so regularly as a publisher that I’ve decided it’s best to answer them on my blog so I can point the enquirers to the answers, and also I think these must be the questions in many people’s minds.

Published authors from large and small publishing houses ask me why their books aren’t selling well enough – although the question is always framed to put the blame with their publisher.

What they want is to move to a publishing company they can see puts effort into promotional activities and also actively approaches bookshops to try to get authors on to their shelves.

These authors will often say their sales figures stick at about 100 books and they ask me if they should change publisher seeing as that figure isn’t high enough.

The answer depends on what exactly has been done by both the publisher and the author and why the figure has stuck at this level. Sales figures for poetry are known to be low, but authors can be surprised at how low the sales figures can be for a debut novel, even with a major publisher.

A literary agent and a literary publicist told me a debut novel with a major publisher may typically sell about 500 copies. Hopefully with subsequent novels that figure should grow, or the publishing house may need to end the contract. An independent press would keep an author on their list with sales at this level.

Authors can think that their publisher isn’t repping the books to shops if they don’t see them on the shelves, and they may think the publisher hasn’t promoted enough if the books don’t sell. But publishers often do a lot of this work without giving the authors details, particularly when submitting books for prizes as it could cause bad feeling among the authors if it’s known who was and who wasn’t put forward for an award.

The first thing an author may know from a major publisher could be that they have been shortlisted. Should publishers keep authors more informed? Or might it be more disappointing to know how much work is done if the results are not too good? I keep our authors well informed about everything we do. But I wonder if, for authors in general, it can be nice not to know the massive promotional effort publishers put in so that the publisher can be blamed for low sales.

The main publishers do also have a whole process for preparing Advance Information sheets and sending reps round to bookshops to show them what’s on offer (you can see examples of AI sheets on each author page on our website - they all have AI sheet links). The bookshops turn down most of the books repped to them. It’s incredibly hard even for a major publisher to get books into shops, where customers are likely to go in looking for the main names and titles.

But managers are likely to take books by authors who have a connection to the local area, and the automated system for ordering means you can just show them your book and they can click and order it at their till. I know I’m repeating this, but it’s less daunting than you think to take your book into bookshops and talk to the buyer. I’ve never been turned down yet if there’s a reason why a book is relevant to the shop I’m approaching.

If a book sells that first hundred then the publisher has launched and promoted it, but the publicity department will stop after a while and move on to the new season’s offerings. They will also be asked to focus on the books that seem to have most chance of taking off. So it does become the author’s task to focus on keeping the sales momentum going. At this point, authors write to me to say their publisher isn’t organising enough events for them. I’ve heard this about both large and small publishing companies.

It surprises me that so many authors feel this is something they should wait at home for until the publishers arrange events and send them the bookings. As an author I had always assumed this was my task, and it is down to authors to keep themselves as actively involved with events, book groups, talks, literary festivals and so on as they can.

A publisher will help out with this. I do contact the literary festivals and will try to get bookings for our authors. But as an individual author it’s likely you’ll do much better by contacting directly – if the publisher phones event organisers and festivals they will get bookings for the authors on the list who catch the eye of the bookings manager and that might not be you.

At Ward Wood we do hold very regular events both for our authors and for authors from other publishers for mutual support, and this does help out as it can be difficult and expensive for authors to get bookings and venues in London. The promotion around an event also helps an author’s name get known. I heard this week that one of the main independent presses (with books in many bookshops) gets 90% of all sales at events, so this shows how important they are.

Even if sales are low at events – and bookselling is hard anywhere – getting articles about each event into local newspapers and on listings sites does get your name seen regularly so that people know that you and your book exist.

I’ve concentrated on fiction in this piece because poetry has its own particular difficulties but as it has always been hard to sell there are also ways to help your book along. I’ll write about poetry soon in another post. However, many of these points are equally true of poetry.

One main difference is that poetry mainly sells at events with few sales from other sources, and sales at events aren't high either, so the effort is much greater. For those with stage fright it is possible to get involved in other ways, perhaps organising events for others (which I like to do)or a very good blog could help.

The fact is that, no matter how great the promotional effort from a poetry press, the sales figures will be in the low hundreds and about 90% of all books sold will be at events. There's no strong reason to move from one poetry press to another as you will be responsible for this 90% of sales no matter which publisher you choose. However, if you have other reasons for leaving a poetry press then it's a good idea to be with one known for good promotion because your name will be more widely seen. It's not just about sales, but also about building a reputation.

The brief answer to people who approach me saying their publisher has only sold 100 copies of their book, hasn’t got it into bookshops and doesn’t arrange events for them, is simple. As this usually comes with an approach to me as a potential publisher the fact is that the sales figure worries me, and not because the other publisher might be to blame.

I would be worried that the author hasn’t found ways to approach bookshops, to organise events, to create a popular blog, to build a Facebook following, to answer posts on high traffic websites (they let you link your name back to your own website which really helps), to do every single thing that helps a novel make that leap from being in the lower hundreds to 500 or more.

And maybe with enough effort a novel could make that magic leap and really take off. But not if the author is saying ‘Why isn’t somebody doing this for me?’ I work extremely hard to promote our authors and to rep their books to shops and organise events. I expect authors to work just as hard at it because it’s a collaboration.

Some authors are lucky and a debut novel is the one a major publishing company puts a massive promotional effort into and it takes off. Everything is done for the novelist. But for most of us getting up above the lower hundreds in sales takes a phenomenal effort and getting published is only the first hurdle. Getting the book to sell is the hardest part – harder even than writing the book, which we all know is extremely difficult.

I’ve been impressed by the mid-list authors from major publishers who have approached me when moving down to an independent seeing as their sales figures don’t reach the high targets expected. They have a real focus on approaching bookshops and giving events, and getting into the press and media.

I know it sounds like hard work and impossible, but writing a book feels like that too, and so does attracting a publisher. We can try to increase our sales figures with the same determination we put into the other tasks needed to be an author.

Why An Advance Can Ruin An Author

I know a few literary agents but I had never heard what one told me recently: that an advance can ruin an author and make it hard for them to keep getting published. The irony is that agents need to go for an advance and a good financial deal because their income is a percentage drawn from the author’s earnings. The way to have your novel considered by a major publisher is by getting an agent to take you on, so there’s no way to avoid the problems an advance can cause.

There are a few major publishers who will consider novels without an agent (Macmillan New Writers and Canongate are two, and Snowbooks is another though not so well known). It’s worth looking at the Macmillan New Writers and Snowbooks websites for advice on how to submit. But the usual route to a major publisher is by finding an agent, and novelists often dream of that high advance as their first step into success as an author.

So how could an advance ruin an author? The literary agent explained that an advance is exactly what its name implies – an advance on your earnings. You don’t get paid any more until your book sales earn more than the figure of your advance – and for many authors this doesn’t happen. If your book sales bring in less than you’ve been paid as an advance, not only is the publisher unlikely to offer future contracts, but also other major publishers will judge you by this track record.

Advances of around £25,000 still represent a reasonable amount to expect, but how easy is it for a debut novelist to surpass that in actual sales? Some novels take off and do earn far more than the advance but, from what I hear, even with major publishers sales of under 1,000 copies for a debut novel would be typical.

Major publishers don’t usually offer royalties based on 10% of cover price, but even if they did you can see how many books would have to sell to pay back the £25,000 advance. If you keep it simple and think of £10 as the price of a novel it would be £1 per book in royalties so at least 25,000 books.

That’s a difficult sales figure to achieve with your debut novel – it might be hard with your follow-up novels in a 2, 3 or 4-book deal. The pressure you feel while writing these novels isn’t the best inspiration to an author.

If you take into account the way major publishers calculate your royalty payment it becomes even more difficult. It’s not 10% of cover price, it really is 10% of the actual profit after expenses have been taken off. Seeing as they discount books dramatically to get them into special deals in the bookshops, the earnings per book for the author can be minimal.

For a book to sell more than 25,000 copies it needs to take off and have people going into bookshops or looking online for it rather than the many others on offer. The author’s name needs to have become well known somehow, and no matter how hard we try as authors to give events and get media coverage, it really needs national newspaper, radio and TV to get a name that well established in the minds of readers. People need to be wanting it rather than the latest novels from all the famous names who are being named regularly in the national media.

Major publishers do have publicity departments, but if you speak to them they will tell you they work on a newly launched book but are then asked to focus on the ones that really show signs of taking off. At that point it’s up to the author and you’ll find yourself trying to get into bookshops, trying to arrange events, and trying to build a following so that your contract will be renewed.

The good news is that publishers don’t ask for the advance back if book sales don’t arrive at the same figure. I wonder if they will one day? So it’s still worth going for it, getting the agent, aiming for a major publisher, taking the advance and seeing what happens. You will still need to work hard to help the book take off and it may be down to you more than you realise.

A good few midlist authors from major publishers move to independent publishers if they can’t achieve the huge sales figures the major publishers want, and this is becoming more frequent. Take a look at the author with Sandstone who made it on to the Booker list – she moved down from a well known publisher.

When I spoke to Jim Powell, whose novel The Breaking of Eggs earned him a £150,000 advance, he said he was amazed how little the publisher did in terms of arranging events for him (he said he offered to give events but they didn’t arrange any – authors don’t realise how much they are expected to do on their own) and also to promote and get the book into newspapers (a friend sent it to the Times Literary Supplement reviewer and that was the only review it got before it suddenly took off).

This is typical, but the publisher did send the book off for prizes and Powell was named on TV as one of the most promising novelists of the year. Publishers do generally try for prizes, although they can’t send all their novels and usually don’t tell the authors if they’ve been submitted unless they get on to the longlist.

Another author with a major publisher has told me a similar story – that she was responsible for trying to get her books into bookshops and for building a following and sales. But I’ll write more on these subjects in future blogs.

The literary agent told me another thing about advances. She said publishers were aiming to poach established and successful authors from other major publishers by offering large advances rather than taking a risk on debut authors. They also poach from independent presses where authors have learnt about the phenomenal effort they need to make to work with their publisher in order to build a following, to achieve sales and to get into bookshops.

It may all sound off-putting to writers as we all want to sit calmly at home and write. But this is the state of publishing and bookselling in a culture where fewer and fewer people are buying books, and where so much reading is enjoyed online. People like a good event with readings to entertain them but they don’t want to buy any more reading material.

So much is on offer for free and authors are under increasing pressure to help publishing outlets and bookshops stay open. if we don’t we really will just be writing at home alone and in peace with publishing outlets and bookshops closing. The authors who do make this effort and succeed at it are the ones who will be poached with tempting advances once they establish themselves.