I have read from more than one source, that agents and publishers look for a would-be author to sell at least 100,000 copies of their book.
If you were lucky to get a £100,000 advance on your novel then 15% would go to your agent if you have one, and 20% if they are an American agent. That’s either £15,000 or £20,000 as commission, which is not a fortune for a large agency, or even a small one with low overheads.
The figure of 100,000 doesn't surprise me. But I can see why self-publishing is an attractive option for would-be novelists, even though I am not a fan.
About 3,000 copies is the figure my friend reported on his debut novel, which has since been translated into German from English.
I have always wondered where one can track sales of books-I like books I read from the library and review them on amazon and Goodreads-but how can I find out how they have down?
Simon-assuming numbers of copies sold are between 10,000 copies, what would a first-time author hope to generate as revenue?
No, 100,000 is never the expected sales for a debut. I don't want to give details of my own contract but I can tell you that publisher sales targets are lower than that! And a six figure advance on a debut is also very, very rare - think more around the 10,000 mark
I think 100k is optimistic.
I've read for first-timers 3000 is acceptable in terms of hardback sales, but maybe that's changed in the last few years. I have seen the 100k bandied about as the number of self-pubs you'd have to sell to attract interest from a Big 5 publisher, but that seems overstated, too.
The last 'new' writer I heard of getting a six-figure advance was Doug Jackson for a three-book series of Roman novels, but that was a few years ago now. He had the advantage, if you can call it that, of being an experienced journalist.
I'd write three books for that sort of money! ;)