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Originally Posted by garycompton  I have a question for John, what is a good book in terms of sales for a publisher - say Fantasy and SF. Is it 10,000 or 100,000 books or somewhere in between? |
It depends entirely on the publishers' expectations, Gary. You look at each book separately, in terms of sales expectations, and make your offer on that basis. So some books are bought expecting a 10,000-copy sale as a paperback original and the advance payment is low - you hope it will sell on after that, but you're cautious. Others are seen immediately as major books, and the first printruns might be projected as 10,000 hardbacks or large-format paperback, then 50,000 paperbacks (I'm talking about UK publoshing here). So the advance will be larger. Publishers make these decisions based on knowledge of the market and reaction to the book in question.
Repeat after me: there is no absolute template!