Book Sales

Only 28 books out of the 300,000 titles sold in 2022 sold more than 500,000 copies →

https://x.com/JasonColavito/status/1620151389363245057

And even worse news comes in his second post in the thread:

“Past the top 100 books, the numbers are dire. The average book sells 200 copies. An average “bestseller” sells about 2,000 copies. Almost all significant book sales are to “communities,” typically book clubs, authors’ social media followers, or interest groups (like true crime).”

This is incredible. We all think that anybody who publishes a book as “made it”, but this clearly isn’t true, and, if you’re the top 100, and it’s definitely not true. So, seems like there’s no real incentive to writing a book other than ego & prestige.

These stats are from 2022, but I doubt if things have changed much since then. They’re probably worse. So, if you really care about exposing your stuff to people, you’re much better off making a podcast, or posting online, eg. in an X thread like this, or, a blog like this!