Some data from a recent anti-trust trial

Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster transcripts were researched and broken down by Elle Griffin.

Here’s what jumped out:

50% of books sold less than a dozen copies 50% of books couldn’t sell 12 copies Publishers like VCs are looking for unicorns

The real value-add of publishers is the advance, i.e. the money to the author It is not the marketing In fact, they want people with large in-built audiences who will do most of the marketing for them And so it’s these folks who get the largest advance

But even a large advance isn’t enough 85% of books with advances of $250k+ don’t earn it out The power law nature of the book publishing industry is also clear from the fact that 4% of profitable titles drive 60% of profits

Read the whole essay by Elle.

It is well-researched and fascinating.

Also, this makes it pretty clear that most of the folks claiming NYT best-selling author are stretching the truth