I thought some of you might find it interesting if I shared a bit of sales data on Appius and Virginia, our reissue of G.E. Trevelyan’s forgotten debut novel, following the wonderful press coverage it has had in the past week.

I don’t usually share detailed sales figures, but the book is out of copyright and it is not as if I have to ask the author’s permission in this instance. Anyway, I do like to offer insight into life as an indie publisher now and then. So here goes.

We were keen to get the book out ahead of the anniversary of the author’s death, as we felt that might give us an opportunity to get some media coverage and help spread the word about her work. She died in February 1941, so the 80th anniversary is early next year.

However, that meant we had to bypass the usual retail cycle (bookshops tend to need several months’ notice for new titles) and therefore we didn’t get, or expect, many pre-orders from shops.

Indeed, just a few copies were ordered.

Prior to publication, I tweeted this thread which told, in summary form, the story of G.E. Trevelyan and the book, much of it paraphrased from @neglectedbooks’ excellent introduction to the our edition. https://twitter.com/meandmybigmouth/status/1308797596404719617

This prompted a number of sales direct from our site. We think about 80 people ordered it in the week or two that followed, which was really a wonderful result. It is a £15 book, and that is a nice bit of revenue for a small publisher.

Sure, we offered a pre-order discount, but that is lower than the discount we have to give bookshops and orders to bookshops are on sale-or-return. Customers ordering direct from us rarely return anything.

So, decent initial result from one Twitter thread and all the RTs and support the story received.

This didn’t lead to any bookshop orders, however. And that was not surprising. We were well into November, the shops were busy coping with both lockdown and the Christmas shopping mayhem. One Twitter thread, no matter how widely shared, was unlikely to make much difference.

But direct sales kept coming in, a couple every day, taking us close to 100 sales before publication. And, in the background, we were bothering books and arts editors and media in the hope that Gertrude’s story would be of interest to them.

Oh, and also sending copies to authors who had offered to read it and potentially lend their support.

And here I want to say a big thank you to those authors. Not all of them liked the book, and not all of them have had time to read it yet, but a fair few did and have been shouting about it online. A special thanks to @nikkimarmery, who went above and beyond for us.

After publication, we kept badgering press and media but it looked like no one would bite. But then @alisonflood jumped in to save the day and her piece in @GuardianBooks had a couple of days of really great attention on social media. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/10/if-she-was-a-bloke-shed-still-be-in-print-the-lost-novels-of-gertrude-trevelyan

And, thank heavens, the article included a direct link to our website. Much as I would have loved readers to buy the book from their local indie, none of them had it in stock. The book being just a couple of clicks away can make a massive difference to sales.

On the day the article ran, we sold dozens of copies and, by the end of that week, another 100 or so had been ordered from our site. That is a big boost in turnover for a small indie like us.

But, of course, the media attention also alerted bookshops. Gardners, the main wholesaler that supplies indies, ordered up 50 copies in anticipation of demand. We don’t get to see how those 50 are doing until/unless a top-up order comes in. None yet. But 50 is good.

The big book chains tend to order direct from our own distributor, but they also have rather complex ordering systems. Individual branches can’t just order from us themselves; they have to go through a process if they want stock. No orders from the chains as of yet.

And what about online? Well, this is interesting. The new Bookshop website is fab but they order all their books from Gardners, so they have only just made it available. We hope for good ongoing sales from there once they can access stock.