If I got my novel published, what's the likelyhood it will sell?

[Julio]

Do you think it helps if say i promoted it on twitter?
I have some followers and alot of them have followers in the thousands, tens of thousands and whatnot.

[Samantha]

Sure. If there's so many followers and you make it sound interesting, I'm sure many of them would read it.

[Jachel Rauss]

If you have it traditionally published, there's a 100% chance it will sell -- likely very well. The publishing house markets for you and does a great job of it.

If you self-publish, there's no telling. If you promote the hell out of it then it can sell. But if you don't work hard on marketing and plan local book signings, it won't sell.

[joann]

the guy above me made a good point (to add on )


they will put your book into a small (new arrival) category so it shud stand out

[Lori]

Congratulations! What a wonderful achievement

Well, if you self-published your work, you're going to need to do your own marketing and advertising campaign, which can be very difficult. You need to get the word out there, and Twitter is a good start, but you should organise who will sell your book in their store, book signings etc. etc.
If, however, you were lucky enough to have a publisher buy your book, then this should all be arranged for you. Although I think you should still advertise on your Twitter, Facebook or Myspace.

Congratulations; keep writing, and good luck with the sales!

[Marcus A]

Wow. Nobody knows what they're talking about here. No idea how old you are, but you wrote a book and asked the question, so here's the actual truth about writing/publishing.

Depends on what you wrote. Literary fiction (i.e. Great Gatsby, Life of Pi, etc.) isn't doing so well these days. It's actually recovering from its lows in the mid-2000s, and its never been a wild seller.

Genre fiction (Sci-fi, Romance, Mystery, etc.) has a better chance of getting picked up, but when I say better chance I mean about .0001% better chance.

Most writers make jack. If you don't sell well in three books, your careers probably going to be over. About 99% of writers fall into this category. Too many writers already on the bookshelves fighting for readers. These books generally have the width of the spine of the book to attract a reader.

That dude talking about new arrivals and that BS. You have to pay to be there. Yup, you got it. Publishers pay for the new arrivals table, or all those tables you see at the front of the store. They pay A LOT to be there. Publishing houses aren't gonig to spend the money to put a new writer there for very long. You MAY get a week, and even then you're going to have to dig into your advance.

Most writers spend their entire first advances (maybe $4,000) putting it towards promotion because the houses generally decide to back one or two titles A YEAR (out of usually 25-40) with their marketing department. This means they'll give you maybe $2,000 marketing (a pittance) and the rest is on you.

Luckily, the internet makes word-of-mouth much easier than it was 10 years ago.

To answer your question, writing's tough. You probably won't make much (if any) money. This is just how it is. It's a tough world, and don't let people bemoan the death of publishing to you. Being a writer has always sucked. But we continue writing b/c we have something inside us that has to come out. And who said you aren't part of that 1%

Read Rotten Rejections. You're going to need this if you start sending out your novel. Anyway, think about what I've said. If you decide you still want all the heartache and pain, welcome to our world.

Good luck.