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Originally Posted by pwalker8
All I can say is that authors who actually know their sales figures and are willing to talk about it publicly say he's way, way off. You can dismiss that if you like, but sometimes people will go with made up numbers simply because it gives them something concrete to go off of, not because it's particularly accurate. For some reason, people would rather latch on to WAG than accept that accurate data just isn't available. It just seems to be something in human nature, especially if the WAG is accompanied with fancy hand waving.
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That is, of course, why authors are upset that the latest report identifies them with their information. I assume you are referring to one author, Dean Wesley-Smith, who writes in a comment on the Passive Voice Blog:
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What is funny about me being sort of out front on this is that my books per title don’t sell well on Amazon. I make most of my money from my books in all the places Data Guy can’t get to, such as movie options, overseas sales, secondary markets, kickstarter projects, book funnel sales, sales through eBay, sales through our own B&M stores, and so on and so on. But I still don’t want that information on my 400 titles out there.
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He is one author who has sales through channels DG doesn't currently reach, so his sales on the report would be understated. The Bookstat website claims date coverage of 96% of US ebook purchases and 94% of US Ebook dollar sales.
The plain truth is that the fact that the data coverage is not 100% does not mean it is comprised of "made up numbers" nor that it is not fit for its purpose. 100% accurate figures are indeed not available. But 90 percent plus accurate figures are. By your reasoning a country could never rely on census data, since it is not 100% accurate. Nor could business rely on just about any industry sales report.