RainToday.com recently asked business book authors how many copies of their first business books were sold. Here is what they found:
4,500 -- Median number of copies sold where the author did not use a book publicity or marketing service.
5,000 -- Median number of copies sold where the author did not use a book agent.
10,000 -- Median number of copies sold where the author used a book publicity or marketing service.
12,000 -- Median number of copies sold where the author used a book agent.
What does this mean for you? Perhaps nothing at all, perhaps a lot.
It says that business book authors benefit from hiring a publicity service and even more by hiring an agent. What it doesn't say is how much the PR services cost the authors versus the money they received from book sales. But, then, most business book authors don't care about the book income since they expect to earn income from increased speaking and/or consulting income.
Why did hiring an agent increase sales for business book authors? If the author had an agent, then he sold the rights to a larger publisher who had better distribution and maybe better marketing than an author who chose to self-publish. Better distribution will almost always result in greater sales. Better marketing will as well, if it really is better marketing.
Click on RainToday.com to read the entire study.
