iUniverse By The Numbers

Publishers Weekly posted a very revealing look at iUniverse in this week's issue. It should be a real eye-opener for aspiring writers who actually believe they will sell any books by going the self-publishing route. Out of  18,000 books iUniverse published in 2004, only 83 titles sold at least 500 copies and a mere 14 showed up on the shelves of Barnes & Noble.  That's the reality, folks.

2004
18,108: Total number of titles published
14: Number of titles sold through B&N's bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)
83: Number of titles that sold at least 500 copies
792,814: Number of copies printed
32,445: Number of copies sold of iUniverse's top seller, If I Knew Then by Amy Fisher

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2003
15,028: Total number of titles published
7: Number of titles sold through B&N's bricks-and-mortar stores (nationally)
76: Number of titles that sold at least 500 copies
700,930: Number of copies printed
10,186: Number of copies sold of iUniverse's top seller, The Sweater LetterbyDavid Distel
$299: Cost of iUniverse's lowest-cost publishing package (includes one book)
$799: Cost of iUniverse's most expensive publishing package (includes 10 books)
$199: Cost of a basic press kit
$1,500: Cost of book publicity service, which includes media pitches

Comments

[Keith]

I'm repeating myself, but it seems necessary:

A vanity press is a company that makes the bulk of its money from a very large number of very small print runs that it sells mainly to people the authors know.

[Mark A. York]

Exactly. How would a small number of authors for a company that still expects to sell a few copies per author figure in?

[Mark A. York]

iUniverse is the only one I paid. It was $99. I bought none. Sold a handful. I don't know who the hell they were. All six of them.

[kitty]

How do those figures compare to, say, Random House?

[Dave Zeltserman]

From these numbers iUniverse obviously serves a critical function - these are roughly 33,000 manuscripts that won't be flooding publishers and agents.

Btw. To come clean, I did self-publish a book through iUniverse. It cost nothing (part of MWA's program with iUniverse), ended up getting some terrific blurbs from Bill Crider, Vicki Hendricks, Gary Lovisi and others, an Italian publisher bought the Italian rights for it, Point Blank Press ended up publishing a version of it as Fast Lane. Since Point Blank published it, Fast Lane has gotten terrifc blurbs/reviews from Ken Bruen, Ed Gorman, Charlie Stella, was made a hardboiled crime club selection by Poison Pen Bookstore, got a rave review in Kate's Mystery Bookstore's newsletter, etc. So there probably are a handful of books in those 33,000 that deserve to be published. Not many, but probably a few.

[Mark A. York]

The figures for Random House are fewer titles and no cost to authors complete with marketing at various levels. In other words there is no comparison.

[kitty]

I realizse that traditional publishing houses don't charge the authors.

I'm interested in the comparison of figures between "Total number of titles published" and "Number of [those] titles that sold at least 500 copies."

[Keith]

Beats me about Random House. When I was published by Walker & Co., their mystery line put out something like a dozen books per quarter. I seriously doubt that any sold fewer than a couple thousand copies.

I admit these aren't hard numbers, but I paid attention while I was there, so I don't think they can be that far off.

[Mark A. York]

I'd say the chance that a RH, hell any mid to large publisher sold less than thousands of copies is nil. 3000 would be considered a disaster. A history title for Wiley sold that many, and they weren't interested in another in that category of sales, even though they published another by the same author.

[kitty]

Thanks; I needed a basis for comparison.

[Karen Anne Mitchell]

It costs large publishers a minimum of several thousand dollars to publish a book (At least the last time I checked, and that was some years ago). So they absolutely have to sell at least a few thousand books just to break even. Small presses, especially those that use POD technology, have lower overhead and seem to do all right selling a few hundred copies of their titles.

My own iUniverse book cost me a few hundred dollars; it's got such a narrow audience that I can't see a big publisher picking it up, and I have never expected that it would actually make me much money or fame. It's actually sold better than I thought it would, and the reviews at Amazon and MBR have all been favorable. Another interesting thing is that the e-book version has outsold the paperback version. I don't know why this is, but I'm not complaining.

[Mark A. York]

Of course reviews at Amazon and MBR aren't real reviews, and thus are meaningless. Kirkus, Library Journal Publisher's weekly are reviews.

[Lee Goldberg]

You can pay for reviews by Kirkus now, so I wouldn't give them much credence, either.

[Mark A. York]

Yes now that you mention it I recall there is that two-tier for profit system at Kirkus. It's new and an ominous sign.

[Jan Burke]

MWA no longer has an iUniverse program.

I was on the committee that looked at the numbers connected to sales through the former program. IIRC, the overwhelming majority of participants sold fewer than 25 books.

Jan

[Karen Anne Mitchell]

"Of course reviews at Amazon and MBR aren't real reviews, and thus are meaningless."

This is incorrect, I'm afraid. They aren't professional reviews, and they should be taken with a grain of salt (as universal praise always should), but as well they are the opinions of people who have read the book being reviewed, and thus they are of value. It's to everyone's advantage to give the reader some credit for both having and expressing an opinion about a book.

[Mark A. York]

The opinions on Amazon, and I have them, usually are friends. I'm not. Read that, fellow vanity press authors and thus unobjective. PA is the best example of this sort of group hug review and MBR as well. In fact the two are one and the same in many cases. This isn't reality.

25 books as Jan pointed out, is.

[Karen Anne Mitchell]

J.K. Rowling has an awful lot of friends, then.

I get the impression that you regard every positive review as suspect; do you have a list of acceptable qualifications we must all have before we are permitted an opinion about a book? And when we read a review, is it not to get the reviewer's opinion, which is an inherently subjective thing?

This isn't math, you see. It's art. And like it or not, art requires that you have a reaction and form an opinion. Perhaps your friends actually did enjoy your book and saw real value in it. Friends can have opinions too, and judging one's own work is notoriously difficult for everyone; this is in fact one of the biggest perils of self-publishing. If someone reads your work and says they like it, why not have faith in them and take them at their word?

To my mind, your perspective as to what constitutes successful writing is much too narrow and is ultimately self-defeating. Keep in mind that selling lots of books is not the only reason to either write or publish. Believe it or not, some people write simply because they enjoy doing so, and 25 books in the hands of the right people may in some cases be considered a smashing success.

[Mark A. York]

"Friends can have opinions too"

Yes they can, and the chances of them pointing out flaws in your book are slim to none.

"and 25 books in the hands of the right people may in some cases be considered a smashing success."

That's good because that's about the average sold. Smashing!

Too narrow? Oh contraire, it's as wide as the market for real books sold and produced the old fashioned way. The third one will be the charm. The first two were practice.

[Karen Anne Mitchell]

Interesting. I have friends I show my work to precisely because I know they will point out any flaws, because they have, sometimes with great enthusiasm.

Smashing indeed! I was both pleased and surprised when mine hit 25. And to think that none of those were to family or friends-- wow!

Totally unexpected, that was.

Anyhow, I'm glad to hear that you're still writing and still believe in yourself. Perseverance is vital in publishing. Best of luck with #3!

[Mark A. York]

And four and five too. To give you an idea of what that route is, Levine/Greenburg is still holding onto it. They may ultimately reject it, but that's the route to success. It won't happen the self-publish route. That's not negative, that's factual. One needs thousands of readers.

[patry Francis]

It may be inaccurate, but I read that four out of five of last year's nominees for the National Book Award had sold less than 1,000 copies of their books.

Can anyone corroborate?

[Ron Pramschufer]

The whole vanity/subsidy press industry is made up of smoke and mirrors. There is a radio (Poscast) two part interview with Dave Maturo, the ex VP of Finance for Xlibris posted at www.wbjbradio.com. He basically confirms that very few books are sold, other than to the author and the system is set up so if you happen to have a winner, and want go somewhere else, Xlibris not only owns the ISBN but the printing file as well, leaving the author the prospect of starting from scratch, if they want to really self publish. The problem is the vanity/subsidy/POD presses make it look too easy, and it's not. For the serious self-publisher, who enters the business with their eyes open,the prospect of success is much higher.

[William Stolley]

I read that iuniverse's 20% to the author is extremely low; as they garner an 80% profit margin on your work. Publishers offer much better returns to their authors.

[Mark A. York]

It's better than 8% of the net, but the low sales that are the norm for vanity presses make whatever the cut is negligible.