Homofactus Press

Russell Davies discusses at length his adventures in publishing land.

remember excitedly following my sales rank on Amazon (though I can’t remember how high it actually got, above is what it is now) and comparing them with a friend who’s a real author. And there were all the nice reviews and interviews and the short-listing for the Blooker thing. And the occasional warm glow from an email from someone who’d actually bought one. Or from seeing one in one of the cafes I’d reviewed.

And then, nothing. No-one bought one.

He goes on to describe his publisher’s lack of interest in his book Eggs Bacon Chips and Beans.

Harpers printed 20,000 copies and they tell me that gross unit sales were 7,428 and net unit sales were 4,702. (I’m not really sure what gross and net means in this context - does this mean there are about 3,000 books to be returned? Not sure.) So, not no-one, obviously. But it wasn’t a hit. And very quickly after Christmas though there was still a bit of press interest in it, I realised that Harpers weren’t bothered any more. Everyone who’d worked on it was now doing something else. That was it. EBCB (the book) was over.

I am struck by two things with Russell’s experience. One is Harper’s lack of long-term commitment to Davies’ book. I am also struck by Harpers practice on doing nothing with the remaindered books.

They seem to have money to spend on projects they aren’t very interested in promoting. If initial sales aren’t strong, like Don Juan, they are on to the next potential publishing paramour.

While the book certainly seems to now be unimportant to Harpers, I’m guessing the book is remains to dear to Russell Davies. As it should.

And I doff my hat to his willingness to begin the task of self-promoting his book. The long tail affects all publisher authors, whether they are with us or Harpers, a giant in comparison.

The long tail says a person can produce a social object like a book and have it sell well indefinitely via the internet. Given the ubiquitious nature of the internet in countries that have the wealth to buy books, authors should count on self-marketing their objects for as long as they have it in them to do so. We’re fools not to.