1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Why are sports books a tough sell?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by WaylonJennings, Dec 16, 2008.

  1. If you sell 20,000, that's good, right? As in, get another book good?
     
  2. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    The Great Exception, of course, is the Endless Logroll . . . everybody's books are wunnerful, wunnerful . . . this works primarily when you have absolute control over
    what you will and will not review.
     
  3. In Exile

    In Exile Member

    Re: sales. Generally speaking, because publishers at different levels have different expectations based on your advance, and hardcovers are more costly than paperbacks, and it depends how much the books are discounted, and the original sales price and a thousand other things...

    ... but VERY generally speaking, 10,000 copies sold for a major publisher trade book is a bare minimum - if you don't hit this, they drop interest pretty fast (and in effect, may drop all interest in your book within days of publication - or even before - if they don't see enough pre-orders and sales). Twenty thousand? Ok, and they might do a paper edition. If you get to 30,000 or so, which is enough to earn back a mid-five figure advance, they're pretty happy, and if you go over 50,000 you begin to earn back a bare six figure advance and they print money each time one of your books sells more than that.

    I know it has been stated elsewhere, but 90% of all books never earn back the advance. In my personal experience, I'm batting about .500, which is both good and bad, as some will argue that you should never earn out, because your agent should squeeze every penny out for you. But I do look forward to receiving some kind of check mid June and mid December, when royalties are sent out, and publisheers ,like earning money nwithou effort, which is what a backlister can do.

    There is no telling in this business, though. With very few exceptions success does not follow success My first big book was on a topic so obvious today it is hard to imagine that when it was written and published, about ten years ago, that no one thought books of that type sold, and I mean no one, and now there are hundreds. I received a modest advance, earned out quick, and the book has since appeared in multiple editions and basically built my house. I've received bigger advances for everything I've done since, primarily based on the success of that book. Some have done really well and earned out, some ok and come close, and for the biggest advances I have received, for books that looked like a total no-brainers, rec'd good reviews, and, for one title in particular, good support from the publisher... nothing. Just as the book came out, the public tired of the subject. Now that was okay in a sense, as one sparked some legislation and really helped some people, but very few read it. The other was skunked by some circumstances out of my control that popped the balloon of interest in the topic ten days after the book appeared. There is just no telling. I know someone whose book appeared on the cover of the Sunday Times book review section, got a very positive review, and sold only 5,000 copies.

    In a sense you have to stay unattached and focus on the work and not the results. If you're checking amazon a hundred times a day you are wasting your time. You can break your back doing promotion, and should, but in the end you can't control sales very much. I recently finished a book that is coming out next summer. I'm not waiting around, but have already got a contract for another, due to appear in 2011, and consulting and pondering working on a book with someone else, and am already framing the next one in my head, and hoping one will do well enough to insure me another decade or so doing this.
     
  4. Wenders

    Wenders Well-Known Member

    I think maybe the biggest problem is people don't have time to stop, sit down and read a book anymore. My parents, who are two of the biggest sports nuts I know, would NEVER read a book I bought them, even if it was about sports. They have a total of about 10 books sitting on a shelf.

    If you think about it, a football game lasts four hours. A basketball game lasts two hours. It takes a lot longer to read a book about a game - a few weeks, maybe, or a month, depending on your reading speed and how much time you have.

    We're in a society now where people don't have time for the most mundane of tasks. If they really want to know about all of this stuff without going into all of the gory details, they can just Wikipedia it or read the book synopsis.

    And my favorite sports book I've read in the past five years was Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. EXCELLENT book, well-researched, with pictures to boot and a great story. I think everyone on this board understands the value of a truly great story in a world where sensationalist journalism has taken over. It's great to see stories that are just interesting for the fact and not because it's been manipulated by the parties involved to make it seem cooler or more cutting-edge.
     
  5. Are sports boosk different than any other type of books?
    The author sells.
    A unique idea sells.
    The new author on the market with a worn out subject disappears into the bargain bin.
    Whether it's romance novels, sci-fi, mystery, history or sports, is the market that much different?
    Just a suspicion on my part.
     
  6. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    I read 3 sports books this year:

    It Never Rains In Tiger Stadium - John Ed Bradley

    Underground a Memoir -- Jason Peter

    War As They Knew It -- Michael Rosenberg

    3 of the best Football books I have read in a while. Have no idea how many copies were sold but I suspect non were off the charts.

    Unless your are a diehard football fan you probably will not pick up any of those books.

    Anyone read the Plaxico Burress story yet?
     
  7. The John Ed Bradley one may be up there with the most beautifully written sports memoirs ever put to paper. It's in paperback now, so apparently it sold well enough to make that transition.

    The Jason Peter book was entertaining, but I'm partial because I happen to know him a little bit and like the guy (been on his radio show a few times), for all his and his family's faults.

    Rosenberg's book is on my Christmas list - from what I understand, he ties Woody and Bo into the tumult of the era (same trick employed by David Maraniss in "Rome: 1960." Wonder how that one sold).
     
  8. Sly

    Sly Active Member

    Best sports book I've read all year. Rosenberg stuck the landing.
     
  9. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Yes he did. Never in a million years did I expect to see the name William Ayers smack in the middle of the story line. It was a very well researched book.
     
  10. swenk

    swenk Member

    Just to give you a general idea of book numbers, here are some of last week's (rounded) sales of football books, from Bookscan which represents a significant percentage (but not all) of national sales:

    Giants books:
    Vacchiano (Eli Manning bio): 800+
    Coughlin: 800+
    Tyree: 600+
    Burress: 64 (ouch!)

    Gifford: 4,500
    Pearlman: 3,000
    Bowden (The Best Game Ever): 1,300

    Keep in mind those are just one week sales, and numbers fluctuate wildly based on various events. But it might give you an idea of general numbers, in a bad economy when book sales are down in all areas.

    Also, from the next issue of SI, about current football books:

    http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1149849/index.htm
     
  11. swenk

    swenk Member

    When you're dealing in non-fiction, those 20,000 books are just as likely to help the next guy who wants to write a book about the same subject. I get calls from editors all the time asking how specific books sold, because they want to judge the strength of the topic.

    If you sold 20,000 copies of a book about Duke basketball, we can't argue that your next book about golf will sell the same. We can argue that you'll deliver a good clean manuscript, that you're a great promoter, that the booksellers will recognize you as an established author. But the sales comparison is a tough leap.

    As In Exile said above (in a truly great post), 20,000 is a lot of books if they paid you $10,000. Not so much if they paid you $100,000. It's all about profit/loss.
     
  12. In Exile

    In Exile Member

    Swenk, you said it better than I could.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page