# Free book sales records?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 30, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498 "2007-08-30T14:13:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498/1 "2007-08-30T14:13:29Z")

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Is there some place where I can learn (for free) how many copies a book sold? The one I found, Nielsen BookScan, wants money in exchange for data, which is both contrary to the countercultural “information should be free” meme that I use as a justification for being cheap and to “it’s just to satisfy my curiousity and I’m not THAT curious.”

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**Author:** ![Tabula\_Rasa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@Tabula\_Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabula_Rasa)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498/2 "2007-08-30T20:29:08Z")

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The publishing industry does not think that information should be free.

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**Author:** ![Myself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Myself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myself)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498/3 "2007-08-30T21:08:02Z")

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Have your tried searching for the book title, or authors name, along with “has sold” , “copies of copies sold,” “sales records,” or similar? Perhaps a news article was written, or some other source has the info.

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**Author:** ![tirial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@tirial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tirial)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498/4 "2007-08-30T21:20:25Z")

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Are you looking for the number of books published and passed to the distributors, the number sent from the distributors to the bookshops, or the number sold to the public? Unfortunately accurate numbers are tricky to get and most of the sites like bookstandard or Neilsen charge. Some information is available - unfortunately it is usually [subjective](http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Subjective-World-of-Book-Sales-Numbers&id=141160).

This [article](http://www.fonerbooks.com/2005/10/numbers-for-book-sales-and-nielsen.html) from fonerbooks gives some insight. The author gives a method of estimating sales based on [Amazon Sale Rank](http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm). It won’t give you all the information you need, but its a start.

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**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2007, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-book-sales-records/417498/5 "2007-08-31T16:37:35Z")

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[QUOTE=tirial]  
This [article](http://www.fonerbooks.com/2005/10/numbers-for-book-sales-and-nielsen.html) from fonerbooks gives some insight. The author gives a method of estimating sales based on [Amazon Sale Rank](http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm). It won’t give you all the information you need, but its a start.  
[/QUOTE]  
Damn, (relatively) NOBODY buys books! Why would someone get into such a lousy business?

Thanks for the info.