anghara

Um, no. Publishing is littered with stories of huge promotion budgets and lousy sales. There were several disasters last year. In contrast word of mouth is quite simply the best way to sell a book. Captain Correlli's Mandolin was a sleeper hit this way. So was the first Harry Potter. Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night got little publicity when it first came out two years ago, and just walked itself out of the bookshops. In contrast I know of at least two highly touted children's books that did rather badly (one was a celebrity author).

There are real issues with the mid-list, I'm not denying that, but there is no money=success equation. If there were, publishers would be an awful lot happier.