A literary agent
told authors on the weekend
that sales numbers
on their previous novels
are everything.
It used to be that agents
could finesse publishers
about the sales numbers.
They could pitch the book
and then answer (or evade)
the question about sales.
Now, publishers don’t need
to ask the question.
The moment the agent
mentions the author’s name,
her sales are looked up on BookNet
(or some other tracking system).
The publishers know the numbers.
The booksellers the publishers
must sell in the book to
know the sales numbers.
That is true
in almost all industries.
Your buyers know exactly
how your last product launch did.
You can explain the failure
but you can’t hide or lie about it.