Eoin Purcell is carrying out an interesting poll over on his blog and asks the question, ‘…what people in Ireland THINK about success is in terms of booksales?’ It is certainly a pertinent question not just for Irish authors but authors and publishers operating in any book market or country. As Eoin points out, pair together an author and publisher with very different expectation of sales and things can go tits up pretty quickly!

You can take part in Eoin’s poll here.

Polls aside, the question is certainly one every self-publishing author needs to give serious consideration. Over-estimate your potential sales on a first print run and you are in danger of ending up with a garage full of books. This is of course one of the fundamental reasons why Print on demand technology has led to an explosion in self-published books. For most authors self-publishing, without the backup traditional of widespread brick ‘n’ mortar shelf space and an well-oiled marketing machine – expectations are considerably pruned back. The exceptions are the authors who have the time, flexibility and knownhow to reach their target audience virally and who have a strong social network presence. This is an area some traditional publishers are still struggling to get to grips with.