A Numbers Game
Finding actual book sales numbers is not an easy task. There are some general figures out there. With the help of Bookscan we can see some specifics. Here were the top 10 books of 2005 with number of units sold:
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling: 7,024,000
2. A Million Little Pieces, James Frey: 1,767,000
3. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini: 1,571,000
4. 1776, David McCullough: 1,234,000
5. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown: 1,087,000
6. The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman: 1,066,000
7. The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren: 983,000
8. Angels & Demons, Dan Brown: 924,000
9. You: The Owner’s Manual: Mehmet Oz, 918,000
10. Eldest, Christopher Paolini: 882,000
Let’s do some basic math using #10, Eldest. List price multiplied by author percentage multiplied by units sold less agent percentage: $21.00 x 10% (a guess) x 882,000 x 85% (percentage after deduction for agent’s take of 15% - another guess)= $1,574,370 to the author…who is about 20 years old.
On the question of where the romance novels fell on the list, I offer two options depending on whether or not you think Sparks qualifies as a romance writer:
22. True Believer, Nicholas Sparks
24. Black Rose, Nora Roberts
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:27 am
Interesting analysis…as an unpublished author, I wouldn’t even have known what to guess regarding author % and agent %.
Nitpick: Shouldn’t it be 882,000 * 85%, not 15%? Surely agents don’t take quite that much!
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:55 am
Yeah, the math is right but I didn’t make the 85% calculation clear. All fixed now.
As to the percentages, the 15% agent fee (with 20% for foreign rights) is now pretty standard. The author percentage does vary. You hear everything from 4% to much higher percentages for the heavy hitters. I went with 10% but it’s probably higher. After a certain number of books sold, his percentage likely increased. Then there are bonuses for making the bestseller lists, book club percentages, movie rights (he sold the first one) and all that jazz. Let’s just say the kid is doing okay. Let’s also say that this isn’t the norm.
January 23rd, 2006 at 2:57 pm
IF Eldest is in hardcover, which it is, he’s got a tiered royalty structure, which means it’s 10% to a certain amount (maybe 5000 copies sold) 12.5% for the next chunk, and 15% thereafter. So he’s making a LOT more.
However, any time the book is sold at a high discount, perhaps at Walmart or through Amazon, he *may* depending on how his agent swung it, be getting only 5-7.5%
It’s very complicated.
~Diana
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Lucky and talented kid.
January 24th, 2006 at 12:43 am
Ah but you forgot to take the reserve for returns (or actual returns). Gross sales make for great PR, but all that matters is the number at the end of the day. Sorry, when one does this (or something so close it’s disgusting ) for a living, one always considers the following: bad debt, discounts/rebates, and returns. Not necessarily in that order (I prefer sales less returns less discounts, but I have well-document emotional problems). The number is still quite nice. I wouldn’t complain. Much. I have expensive cats.
This is in no way an effort to detract from the big story: HK did algebra. Legitimate, honest, algebra. In public.
Diana is, depressingly, right about other factors. Who knows what kind of deal a kid like that got? Though we shouldn’t let that stop us from gnashing our teeth. 20.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:01 am
About time someone noticed my attempt at math. The formula was just a simple example without all the extras. My main goal here, as Kassia has uncovered, was to awe everyone with my ability to use a calculator.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
HelenKay your skill with the calculator is unexpected and stunning. The 10/12.5/15 tier that Diana offers up is boilerplate; with Paolini’s road to publication, it would seem unlikely he got a standard deal.