This issue of an average book only selling 250-500 copies is probably accurate, as is the other number you cite for self-publishing. This is because 85%-90% of all books “fail,” to use a brutal industry term, and because most self-pubbed authors don’t go into what they’re doing with any kind of marketing plan.

The numbers come from Bookscan. That is the primary marker of sales for book publishing at large. As I said in my post, it says it accounts for 70% of all through-the-register sales. It does not account for any kind of specialty sales, so all kinds of authors like to claim that they’re selling thousands of books through nontraditional outlets, and there’s no proof. Book publishing does not have good ways to track sales, and Bookscan is the best we’ve got. And a subscription to Bookscan is prohibitively expensive, so most agents don’t even have one. But most book publishers do.

A midlist author is simply an author on any given list who is not a blockbuster (or bestseller). So yes, 10,000 copies sold would be very successful, but it’s not bestselling. A midlist author is consistent, has generally earned out their advance, and is earning royalties. All of us should aspire to be midlist authors!

Thanks for the good questions!

I’ve heard/read several times that “In a climate where a book is considered successful if it sells 5,000 copies over the course of its entire shelf life…” but I have never seen the source material and how that claim was substantiated.

I’ve also read/heard (more than once) that the average traditionally published book sells 250 or 500 copies (I’ve read both numbers but which one should I trust) in its life span and that the average self-published book sells less than 100 copies.

But I’ve never heard where all of these numbers come from and how to find the source on the Internet to discover how they came up with these numbers. Do you know?