BOOKSCAN AND BEST SELLERSBookscan New Zealand was set up in late 2007. It monitors end-user consumer sales (at point of sale) from a panel of book retailers, including all the chains, enabling detailed and highly accurate sales information on which books are selling, and at what price, to be available to the book trade. All who contribute data have access to the reports weekly.
The Bookman has long been skeptical of NZ best-seller lists but now it seems we have highly accurate sales figures which has to be god news for everyone - publishers, booksellers and consumers.
Sadly The Bookman does not have access to the Bookscan figures but a friendly bookseller gave me a sneaky look at last week's sales figures and I was fascinated to see that the top 5 titles this week are all from one author - Stephenie Meyer - with her Twilight series and that the average sale price indicates that there is very little discounting.
Seems that there IS money for things that people really want and it is clear that books are being perceived as good value in these difficult economic times.
Stephenie Meyer has well and truly headed off J K Rowling! Booksellers will be pleased to know that Meyer and others are stepping up to replace all those amazing Rowling sales from the last few years.
Bookscan Top Five for week ending 3 January.
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Twilight
Twilight
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Twilight
Twilight
NZ Sales figures for these titles for the week ranged from almost 2500 for the first down to over 1700 for the 5th.
Interesting to note too that a title I have just finished, reading SCARPETTA, came in at number nine. More about that title in a little while,.
I agree that it is great to have reliable retail sales statistics after all these years. Pity is that they arrive just as those figures start to lose relevance. So many sales are occurring outside the retail trade that the figures not only are slightly inaccurate now but will become more so over time.
ReplyDeleteJust think of all the internet sales (both direct by publishers and via Amazon and similar internet retailers) then add special sales to the Warehouse and other non-book retailers.
So mine are slightly muted cheers for finally seeing this data.
I am the managing director of Savas Beatie (no relation, different spelling) LLC, an independent publisher of military, general history, and sports titles. You can see more about our program here: www.savasbeatie.com
ReplyDeleteWhile we enjoy very good distribution into the book trade, we work hard to sell outside the trade. As a result, our Bookscan numbers often look puny, but we routinely sell, literally, ten or even twenty times the number via specialty sales, national book clubs, author events, and so on then Bookscan reports.
And I know from direct experience that Bookscan numbers do not even approach reporting "about 70 percent" of sales as some like to claim. Here is but one example: We held two major author events (same book and author) through two Bookscan-reporting outlets during the same reporting week and sold a documented 108 books. We know from other retail sales around the country during the same period that more than double that number were also sold through retail outlets (another event, non-Bookscan location), Amazon, and so forth. One customer bought 12 for his employees at another non-reporting site. Bookscan reported 129 books sold that week. The real number (retail, Amazon, other events, and our website) was closer to 400.
I am increasingly becoming convinced that Bookscan--while a good idea in theory--has been hijacked by the elitists of the trade, and is being used to shut out smaller presses from any potential limelight. It is a a flawed methodology that allows larger publishers to look good (when they want to) or otherwise ignore (when it is in their best interests to do so).
It is no small irony that when books are sold in non-traditional ways (i.e., not trackable by Bookscan), the author and publisher make a heck of a lot more money.
Great blog. Keep up the good work.
Best Regards,
Theodore P. Savas
Savas Beatie LLC
www.savasbeatie.com
www.savasbeatie.blogspot.com