There's one area that's confusing to me regarding Aeryn’s career propects. 8,400 sales is bad, but only if you know that the publisher printed 25,400 copies. When her next publisher is looking at buying her books, don’t they only have access to sales (though Bookscan) not the print run? In other words, those 8,400 copies could be on a 10k print run, which would be great. How does the next publisher know that the book was unprofitable?
I ask because while it seems like returns can hurt the publisher, they shouldn't ruin an author's career, and cautioning away from pushing for larger print runs is problematic too, since print runs definitely affect the merchandising in the trade. If you don't print enough books, they can't put them in a display, etc.
It seems like authors (or agents, at least) should push for bigger print runs, hoping that the extra copies will result in better merchandising and get sales in the bank (bookscan) and let the publisher worry about the returns.
Returns - always bad?
There's one area that's confusing to me regarding Aeryn’s career propects. 8,400 sales is bad, but only if you know that the publisher printed 25,400 copies. When her next publisher is looking at buying her books, don’t they only have access to sales (though Bookscan) not the print run? In other words, those 8,400 copies could be on a 10k print run, which would be great. How does the next publisher know that the book was unprofitable?
I ask because while it seems like returns can hurt the publisher, they shouldn't ruin an author's career, and cautioning away from pushing for larger print runs is problematic too, since print runs definitely affect the merchandising in the trade. If you don't print enough books, they can't put them in a display, etc.
It seems like authors (or agents, at least) should push for bigger print runs, hoping that the extra copies will result in better merchandising and get sales in the bank (bookscan) and let the publisher worry about the returns.
Or does that all just feed the vicious cycle?