Okay, that subject line is a bit of a psych, as we Gen Xers used to say. We all know publishers don’t reveal sales figures; instead, they leave everyone to guess via analytics, vibes, and gossip. There are many weird reasons for this, all mainly “norms, not laws,” as we used to say in 2016. I will not be the one to break this silly code. However, no one gets huffy if you reveal actual sales figures for backlist titles.
Now that Belt has over 150 titles under our….belt, we have the beginnings of a real backlist catalog. Backlists — books that have been on the market for at least one year— are the key to success: as they continue to sell, they provide an almost passive income stream.
Backlists are, also, one way the big stay big and the small stay small: the Big Five have amassed ginormous backlists that allow them to get bigger and fatter. It’s like compounding interest; get enough capital and you can live on the interest. The incredibly long American copyright terms—terms which are …
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