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<blockquote data-quote="Truename" data-source="post: 4750765" data-attributes="member: 78255">I want to add my voice to the chorus: nobody knows how many books have been sold, not even WoTC. Let me explain.WoTC knows how many books they have sold to bookstores. Sort of. Bookstores are allowed to return books that don't sell, so publishers make a guess (called a &quot;reserve&quot;) about how many will be returned to them.Okay, so WoTC doesn't know how many people have purchased books. They only know what they've sent to bookstores, and they've made a guess about how many of those will be returned.&nbsp; What about the bookstores? Surely they know how many books they have sold?Yes, they do (probably). But they're not telling. In order to tell how many books have actually been sold to customers, you'd have to call every bookseller on the planet (not just bookstores) and get their sales data.Of course, that's impossible. But there are companies that survey bookstores to try to garner that information. One of them is Bookscan, run by Nielsen, who also has those famous &quot;Nielsen boxes&quot; that track TV viewing. The Nielsen data will tell you how well your book is doing, in typical bookstores, relative to other books. It won't tell you actual sales numbers, although Nielsen acts as though it does.Let me illustrate. I'm the author of a fairly popular software development book. My most recent royalty statement is for Q4 '08. Here's what the various sources say about my sales in that quarter (I've rounded the numbers to maintain my anonymity):Ingram: no dataBookscan: ~650 salesMy royalty statement: ~3,700 sold to bookstores - ~700 reserve = ~3,000 minimum assumed to sellAs you can see, it's all a bunch of voodoo. The only people who have a clue as to how many books have been sold is WoTC, and even they don't know for sure.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Truename, post: 4750765, member: 78255"] I want to add my voice to the chorus: nobody knows how many books have been sold, not even WoTC. Let me explain. WoTC knows how many books they have sold to bookstores. Sort of. Bookstores are allowed to return books that don't sell, so publishers make a guess (called a "reserve") about how many will be returned to them. Okay, so WoTC doesn't know how many people have purchased books. They only know what they've sent to bookstores, and they've made a guess about how many of those will be returned. What about the bookstores? Surely they know how many books they have sold? Yes, they do (probably). But they're not telling. In order to tell how many books have actually been sold to customers, you'd have to call every bookseller on the planet (not just bookstores) and get their sales data. Of course, that's impossible. But there [I]are[/I] companies that survey bookstores to try to garner that information. One of them is Bookscan, run by Nielsen, who also has those famous "Nielsen boxes" that track TV viewing. The Nielsen data will tell you how well your book is doing, [I]in typical bookstores[/I], [I]relative[/I] to other books. It won't tell you actual sales numbers, although Nielsen acts as though it does. Let me illustrate. I'm the author of a fairly popular software development book. My most recent royalty statement is for Q4 '08. Here's what the various sources say about my sales in that quarter (I've rounded the numbers to maintain my anonymity): Ingram: no data Bookscan: ~650 sales My royalty statement: ~3,700 sold to bookstores - ~700 reserve = ~3,000 minimum assumed to sell As you can see, it's all a bunch of voodoo. The only people who have a clue as to how many books have been sold is WoTC, and even they don't know for sure. [/QUOTE]

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