The resultant 2008 book, Predictably Irrational, has sold 136, 000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan.
But if they are looking at external talent, BookScan is the only way to get numbers.
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
These are Bookscan numbers for books that we think are similar to the book being pitched.
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
By Nielsen BookScan's count, about 1, 000 print copies have been sold in the six months since.
His 51st novel, Under the Dome, was released in November, selling 600, 000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan.
According to Nielsen Bookscan, only 23% of total dead-tree book sales this year come from hardcover books.
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Because of the way that the market is shifting, BookScan is less of an issue than it was.
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
Nielsen BookScan said it currently doesn't display its data from tracking digital books.
Figures from Nielsen BookScan show it also sold 20 times the next new entry by Jackie Collins, The Power Trip.
Nielsen BookScan data tracks about 85% of the nation's physical book sales based on information supplied by national retailers and independent booksellers.
Publisher acquisition tactics adise, BookScan has a challenge on its hands: How can it keep up with rapidly diverging and mutating book markets?
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
But publishers, who saw print sales fall nearly 10 % in 2011, according to Nielsen BookScan, seem willing to gamble on the strategy.
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Readers are buying a greater variety of books than ever, with weekly sales of 220, 000 different ones in Britain alone, according to Nielsen BookScan.
His "Death by Hollywood, " about a failing screenwriter who witnesses a murder, has sold 13, 000 copies since its publication in 2003, according to Nielsen BookScan.
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The value of the UK's physical books market fell by nearly 5% over the course of 2012 in value terms, according to market researchers at Nielsen Bookscan.
Nielsen BookScan, which creates best-seller lists that are syndicated widely, including to the Wall Street Journal, says it tries to prevent its sales data from being manipulated.
According to the British publisher I spoke to, digital sales are now expected to be between 25 and 55 per cent for general trade fiction, which is a huge problem for BookScan.
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
Weekly sales in the U.K. of last year's winner, "Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes, jumped from 2, 535 to 14, 534 -- an increase of 473% -- in the week it won, according to Nielsen Bookscan.
For those authors who have been told they have been passed over because of poor BookScan numbers, it may well be that the editor is simply chickening out of a harder conversation about quality, fit, marketing, etc.
FORBES: Can Nielsen BookScan Stay Relevant In The Digital Age?
"By way of comparison, the latest phenomenon in the book trade, Fifty Shades of Grey, sold 664, 000 in its highest week of sales so far, " said David Walter from Nielsen BookScan, which has been monitoring book sales in the UK since 1998.
Nielsen BookScan's definition of bulk sales includes quantities bought by corporations or associations either for resale or free distribution, and quantities purchased by their authors, regardless of whether the writers intend to resell the books, give them away, or use them to fulfill a direct-marketing promotion.
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