catches lightning in a bottle and starts an uphill climb from sales of under 10,000 – retailers need more than publisher hype to gauge their orders. Actually seeing a record of improvement can be the difference between having the confidence to double an order quantity or simply waiting to see how customers react, and in some cases, waiting even a month can be too long on some surprise hits.
But the absence of sales charts keeps more than just the retailers in the dark—letting the various publishers' PR machines drive the narrative means that even the creators can have a warped impression of what does well in the market. One publishing source shared a story about a creator who was under the impression that a specific list of other creators were enjoying higher sales on their titles.