I used to think that to become a bestselling author you needed to sell millions of books.
And while millions of books will certainly get you on the bestselling list, it turns out you could sell far fewer copies and still make a bestseller list.
How does 325 copies per day sound?
According to analysis conducted by Publishers Weekly, a book can make Amazon’s daily bestseller list by selling about 300 copies per day. Publishers Weekly arrived at this number by dividing the roughly 1,000 copies per day sold by a given bestselling book across all retailers by 30% — which is the percentage of print books that Amazon sells.
That’s right, Amazon sales account for about 30% (or more) of all print books sold in this country.
Now back to those 300 copies per day. This may not seem like many copies, but if you’re a publisher or published author you know that 300 copies is quite a lot of copies. And that’s why I recommend our book Everyday Book Marketing to authors.
When you’re a writer or small press like us, every book sold is a success story.
And if by chance or persistence or luck (or a combination of all three) you happen to sell 300 or more books per day on Amazon, keep a close eye on the bestseller list.