And the numbers just get fuzzier from there. Copies are stolen.
Copies are dropped. Shipping people get the count wrong. Some
copies end up in the wrong box and go to a bookstore that didn't
order them and isn't invoiced for them and end up on a sale table
or in the trash. Some copies are returned as damaged. Some are
returned as unsold. Some come back to the store the next morning
accompanied by a whack of buyer's remorse. Some go to the place
where the spare sock in the dryer ends up.
The numbers on a royalty statement are actuarial, not actual.
They represent a kind of best-guess approximation of the copies
shipped, sold, returned and so forth. Actuarial accounting works
pretty well: well enough to run the juggernaut banking,
insurance, and gambling industries on. It's good enough for
divvying up the royalties paid by musical rights societies for
radio airplay and live performance. And it's good enough for
counting how many copies of a book are distributed online or off.
Counts of paper books are differently precise from counts of
electronic books, sure: but neither one is inherently countable.
And finally, of course, there's the matter of selling books.
However an author earns her living from her words, printed or
encoded, she has as her first and hardest task to find her
audience.
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