This is sort of an interesting question. If my first book sold 16,000 hardcovers out of a 20,000 copy run, presumably my publisher would be pretty pleased.
But obviously, if the book sells 16,000 copies of a 50,000 copy run, the publisher is gonna be miserable. But I didn't have any say in whether the publisher printed 50,000 or 20,000 copies: am I still going to take the flak for the failure of the extra copies to sell?
Of course, this could be justified -- after all, the shelves were full of my books and I had all this good buzz: arguably, if the book itself had been better, it would've sold more.
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branchandroot
Is the writer blamed for bad sell-through?
Date: 2004-08-05 10:25 am (UTC)But obviously, if the book sells 16,000 copies of a 50,000 copy run, the publisher is gonna be miserable. But I didn't have any say in whether the publisher printed 50,000 or 20,000 copies: am I still going to take the flak for the failure of the extra copies to sell?
Of course, this could be justified -- after all, the shelves were full of my books and I had all this good buzz: arguably, if the book itself had been better, it would've sold more.