A survey by the British educational think-tank The Sutton Trust has highlighted the fact that old class distinctions and the old-boy network are still alive and well in modern Britain's education and employment practices.
The report shows that, although only about 7% of the British population attend exclusive "independent" schools like Eton, Rugby and Winchester (which come with fees of up to $65,00 a year), graduates from these schools make up 74% of the judiciary, 71% of barristers, 71% of top military jobs, 61% of senior doctors, 51% of solicitors, 50% of cabinet politicians, 48% of the civil service, and 34% of top corporate executives. The remaining 93% of the population, therefore, contribute the remainder, i.e. 26% of the judiciary, 29% of barristers and military top brass, etc.
In the same way, less than 1% of the British population attend the elite universities of Oxford or Cambridge, but graduates from those two institutions provide 74% of the judiciary, 47% of cabinet posts, and 31% of top executive positions.
In view of this, the British government (currently led by David Cameron, who, you guessed it, went to Eton College and Oxford University) is launching an effort to push businesses to be less class-conscious in their hiring practices. Some companies, such as accountants Deloitte, have already introduced "school and university blind interviews", where hirers do not have access to candidates' educational institutions, and so are forced to judge them purely on their academic accomplishments and individual merits.
Of course, there are those who object to such "social engineering". The provost of Eton plans to resign from the Conservative Party, and a group of top officials from several independent schools published an open letter in The Times, stressing the outstanding education they offer, and decrying this "discrimination" against their students.
Monday, June 06, 2016
Sunday, June 05, 2016
Real estate challenges in Toronto and Vancouver
For some months now, the Canadian media has been full of reports about the overheated and often corrupt real estate market, especially in Vancouver, but also here in Toronto.
Recent figures put the average home price in the Greater Vancouver Area at nearly $1.1 million, and about $740,000 in Greater Toronto (yes, that's right, I did say "average"). The average price of a detached house in Vancouver is now nearly $3 million, and even modest homes in the outskirts top $700,000. These prices are more than double what they were just seven short years ago (by comparison, over the same period, average wages have increased by just 15%). Many millennials and recent immigrants are finding it just impossible to find houses within their budget in the more central areas, leading them to settle for suburban, or even more distant, locations, and often renting out portions of their homes to make ends meet. An increasing number of millennials are moving out of Toronto and Vancouver in favour of cheaper cities like Oshawa, Hamilton and Barrie in Ontario, and Kelowna and the Fraser Valley in BC, thus pushing up prices in those areas too. Many are even making a conscious decision to rent instead of buy, preferring the flexibility and the debt-free lifestyle.
A plethora of Vancouver real estate scandals and questionable practices, such as the Sutton Group-West Coast Realty allegations, the scams of New Coast Realty, and the practice of "shadow flipping", which is particularly rampant in Vancouver, have only made a bad situation worse.
Yes, interest rates are at an all-time low, encouraging people to dip their toes in home ownership that might not otherwise have done so, but a large part of the real estate boom can be tied to an unprecedented influx of foreign money, mainly from China. An estimated $1 trillion in capital flowed out of China in the last year alone, largely in an attempt to preserve wealth in an increasingly risky country, and the weak loonie makes Canada a particularly attractive investment prospect. An estimated 74% of Toronto condos built since 2010 are owned by foreign (mainly Chinese) investors, and foreign buyers now account for an estimated quarter of the luxury home market Canada-wide (that proportion will be much higher in desirable centres like Toronto and Vancouver). Obtaining reliable figures for such transactions is fraught with difficulty, though, and the picture may be even worse than it appears given that it is common for a family member already living in Canada to purchase property, but using offshore cash.
Some commentators, including ScotiaBank CEO Brian Porter and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, have been calling for protectionist measures like a luxury tax on foreign buyers and speculators, and a tightening of mortgage lending rules for everyone, in the hopes of cooling down these overheated markets and giving young local home buyers a fighting chance at living in our major urban centres. However, it is by no means certain that such measures would be effective, and they may carry with them some unwanted economic repercussions, such as a sweeping reduction in home values and the possible wholesale loss of construction jobs.
Other countries, like Australia, New Zealand and the UK, are also experiencing a similar influx of Chinese money which is distorting their local real estate markets. Australia has moved to limit foreigners to purchases of newly-built houses and apartments; both Britain and New Zealand have raised capital gains taxes to try to address the problem. But the markets there continue to sizzle uncomfortably, and no obvious solution presents itself.
Recent figures put the average home price in the Greater Vancouver Area at nearly $1.1 million, and about $740,000 in Greater Toronto (yes, that's right, I did say "average"). The average price of a detached house in Vancouver is now nearly $3 million, and even modest homes in the outskirts top $700,000. These prices are more than double what they were just seven short years ago (by comparison, over the same period, average wages have increased by just 15%). Many millennials and recent immigrants are finding it just impossible to find houses within their budget in the more central areas, leading them to settle for suburban, or even more distant, locations, and often renting out portions of their homes to make ends meet. An increasing number of millennials are moving out of Toronto and Vancouver in favour of cheaper cities like Oshawa, Hamilton and Barrie in Ontario, and Kelowna and the Fraser Valley in BC, thus pushing up prices in those areas too. Many are even making a conscious decision to rent instead of buy, preferring the flexibility and the debt-free lifestyle.
A plethora of Vancouver real estate scandals and questionable practices, such as the Sutton Group-West Coast Realty allegations, the scams of New Coast Realty, and the practice of "shadow flipping", which is particularly rampant in Vancouver, have only made a bad situation worse.
Yes, interest rates are at an all-time low, encouraging people to dip their toes in home ownership that might not otherwise have done so, but a large part of the real estate boom can be tied to an unprecedented influx of foreign money, mainly from China. An estimated $1 trillion in capital flowed out of China in the last year alone, largely in an attempt to preserve wealth in an increasingly risky country, and the weak loonie makes Canada a particularly attractive investment prospect. An estimated 74% of Toronto condos built since 2010 are owned by foreign (mainly Chinese) investors, and foreign buyers now account for an estimated quarter of the luxury home market Canada-wide (that proportion will be much higher in desirable centres like Toronto and Vancouver). Obtaining reliable figures for such transactions is fraught with difficulty, though, and the picture may be even worse than it appears given that it is common for a family member already living in Canada to purchase property, but using offshore cash.
Some commentators, including ScotiaBank CEO Brian Porter and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, have been calling for protectionist measures like a luxury tax on foreign buyers and speculators, and a tightening of mortgage lending rules for everyone, in the hopes of cooling down these overheated markets and giving young local home buyers a fighting chance at living in our major urban centres. However, it is by no means certain that such measures would be effective, and they may carry with them some unwanted economic repercussions, such as a sweeping reduction in home values and the possible wholesale loss of construction jobs.
Other countries, like Australia, New Zealand and the UK, are also experiencing a similar influx of Chinese money which is distorting their local real estate markets. Australia has moved to limit foreigners to purchases of newly-built houses and apartments; both Britain and New Zealand have raised capital gains taxes to try to address the problem. But the markets there continue to sizzle uncomfortably, and no obvious solution presents itself.
Saturday, June 04, 2016
Vasile Cepoi certain to win Romanian town election
The small town of Draguseni in Romania is in for an interesting mayoral election tomorrow. The incumbent, Vasile Cepoi, is seeking a fourth term as Mayor, but he is facing a stiff challenge from two other candidates, both of whom just happen to be called ... Vasile Cepoi.
The two challengers are representing two different centre-right political parties, so the current centre-left Mayor Cepoi is convinced that it is all part of a nefarious right-wing plot to oust him by any means possible. The two challengers - who are not related, either to each other, or to the incumbent mayor - deny any collusion, and maintain that they are standing for election on their own individual merits and platforms.
To be fair, Vasile is a hugely popular name in Romania, and Cepoi is also a common family name in that region of Romania near the Moldova border.
UPDATE
The winner of the Draguseni election was ... Vasile Cepoi
The two challengers are representing two different centre-right political parties, so the current centre-left Mayor Cepoi is convinced that it is all part of a nefarious right-wing plot to oust him by any means possible. The two challengers - who are not related, either to each other, or to the incumbent mayor - deny any collusion, and maintain that they are standing for election on their own individual merits and platforms.
To be fair, Vasile is a hugely popular name in Romania, and Cepoi is also a common family name in that region of Romania near the Moldova border.
UPDATE
The winner of the Draguseni election was ... Vasile Cepoi
Oil execs excessively rewarded for mediocre performances
A Globe article on executive compensation highlights the glaring disconnect between private sector business performance and the salaries granted to company CEOs (and, to a lesser extent, other executives). Nowhere is this more apparent than in the oil and gas and other natural resources sectors, which have seen a dramatic downturn since 2014. You would never know it from their executive salaries, though.
Take Encana Corp, the Calgary-based energy producer. Hit by falling oil prices, the company lost US$5.2 billion last year as revenues tanked by almost half, the share price dropped 56%, dividends were slashed, and about 20% of the workforce was laid off, with another 20% reduction expected over the course of this year. 2015 was not a good year for Encana, to put it mildly. And yet, CEO Doug Suttles, who presided over this carnage, was granted a 14% increase in total compensation (largely in the form of shares and stock options), up from $7.7 million in 2014 to $8.8 million in 2015.
Now, no-one is suggesting that EnCana's dire results and consequent job losses were the personal fault of Mr. Suttles, but this does seem in a little bad taste given the economic climate, and sends a horrible PR message to both eliminated and current employee, not to mention the companies' shareholders.
Neither is this an isolated example. Enbridge Inc.'s CEO Al Monaco saw his total pay package increase by 50% to $8.9 million in 2015, for what a company spokesman describes as "strong financial results" (it actually posted a loss of $37 million, its share price fell by 23%, and 600 jobs were cut). Suncor Inc.'s CEO Steve Williams received $12.2 million in compensation for 2015, more or less unchanged from 2014 (although only due to a large adjustment to his pension valuation), a handsome reward that came on the back of a $2 billion loss for the company and over 1,700 lost jobs.
Mining companies have been facing down a commodity price slump for three or four years now, but that did not stop Teck Resources Ltd, which lost $2.5 billion and 9% of its workforce in 2015, and saw its share price shrivel by 66%, from voting CEO Don Lindsay a 2.4% increase in his compensation, which totalled $10.24 million. Finning International Inc. gave CEO Scott Thompson a 10% increase ($5.3 million), despite losing $161 million and cutting 1,900 jobs (or about 13% of its workforce).
Nor is the natural resources sector the only, or perhaps even the most egregious, sector involved. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. CEO Michael Pearson was paid a ridiculous $183 million in 2015, a year in which the company faced scandal and legal investigations over its drug-pricing policies, and its share price fell by 29% on the NYSE.
Some companies argue that such rewards are necessary to retain top executives, particularly during difficult times, or that they deserve recognition for making difficult but necessary decisions to strengthen their companies during this challenging period, or just that the companies did relatively well compared to others in the sector who did still worse, and so deserve financial praise for that alone. The truth is, though, that many top execs are the financial equivalent of mercenary fighters, who will cut and bail at the first sniff of a better position elsewhere, and have no loyalty to anything other than themselves.
But not everyone thinks this way. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, a company which is as deeply invested in the oil sands as anyone, and has suffered accordingly in recent months, has worked hard to avoid any lay-offs at all, and has instead instituted a 10% salary cut for senior management and staff in order to save money. Company president Steve Laut set an example, by taking a 46% total compensation cut (although this still left him with a pretty handsome $5.1 million for the year).
It seems to me that the pool of high-level executives in Canada cannot possibly be so small that companies have to resort to these kinds of financial bribes to keep them from leaving during hard times like the present. Bear in mind that these people are all multi-millionaires anyway, and can easily afford to "take one for the team" during temporary economic lulls. Such unwarranted compensation increases smack of rewarding execs for, if not bad behaviour, then at least mediocre and unexceptional performance.
Take Encana Corp, the Calgary-based energy producer. Hit by falling oil prices, the company lost US$5.2 billion last year as revenues tanked by almost half, the share price dropped 56%, dividends were slashed, and about 20% of the workforce was laid off, with another 20% reduction expected over the course of this year. 2015 was not a good year for Encana, to put it mildly. And yet, CEO Doug Suttles, who presided over this carnage, was granted a 14% increase in total compensation (largely in the form of shares and stock options), up from $7.7 million in 2014 to $8.8 million in 2015.
Now, no-one is suggesting that EnCana's dire results and consequent job losses were the personal fault of Mr. Suttles, but this does seem in a little bad taste given the economic climate, and sends a horrible PR message to both eliminated and current employee, not to mention the companies' shareholders.
Neither is this an isolated example. Enbridge Inc.'s CEO Al Monaco saw his total pay package increase by 50% to $8.9 million in 2015, for what a company spokesman describes as "strong financial results" (it actually posted a loss of $37 million, its share price fell by 23%, and 600 jobs were cut). Suncor Inc.'s CEO Steve Williams received $12.2 million in compensation for 2015, more or less unchanged from 2014 (although only due to a large adjustment to his pension valuation), a handsome reward that came on the back of a $2 billion loss for the company and over 1,700 lost jobs.
Mining companies have been facing down a commodity price slump for three or four years now, but that did not stop Teck Resources Ltd, which lost $2.5 billion and 9% of its workforce in 2015, and saw its share price shrivel by 66%, from voting CEO Don Lindsay a 2.4% increase in his compensation, which totalled $10.24 million. Finning International Inc. gave CEO Scott Thompson a 10% increase ($5.3 million), despite losing $161 million and cutting 1,900 jobs (or about 13% of its workforce).
Nor is the natural resources sector the only, or perhaps even the most egregious, sector involved. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. CEO Michael Pearson was paid a ridiculous $183 million in 2015, a year in which the company faced scandal and legal investigations over its drug-pricing policies, and its share price fell by 29% on the NYSE.
Some companies argue that such rewards are necessary to retain top executives, particularly during difficult times, or that they deserve recognition for making difficult but necessary decisions to strengthen their companies during this challenging period, or just that the companies did relatively well compared to others in the sector who did still worse, and so deserve financial praise for that alone. The truth is, though, that many top execs are the financial equivalent of mercenary fighters, who will cut and bail at the first sniff of a better position elsewhere, and have no loyalty to anything other than themselves.
But not everyone thinks this way. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, a company which is as deeply invested in the oil sands as anyone, and has suffered accordingly in recent months, has worked hard to avoid any lay-offs at all, and has instead instituted a 10% salary cut for senior management and staff in order to save money. Company president Steve Laut set an example, by taking a 46% total compensation cut (although this still left him with a pretty handsome $5.1 million for the year).
It seems to me that the pool of high-level executives in Canada cannot possibly be so small that companies have to resort to these kinds of financial bribes to keep them from leaving during hard times like the present. Bear in mind that these people are all multi-millionaires anyway, and can easily afford to "take one for the team" during temporary economic lulls. Such unwarranted compensation increases smack of rewarding execs for, if not bad behaviour, then at least mediocre and unexceptional performance.
Friday, June 03, 2016
Why is there a gender pay gap among university professors?
On reading a BBC article about the University of Essex's move to eliminate the gender pay gap among its professors, I started to wonder what exactly is the mechanism for such a pay gap to arise in the first place.
The article points out that, on average, full-time female academics are paid 11% less than men in the UK, with some institutions like Queen's University Belfast and King's College London showing significantly higher discrepancies. I'm sure the situation is pretty similar elsewhere, including here in Canada.
Now, much of the overall gender pay gap is a result of a disproportionate numbers of women working part-time jobs, and their disproportion representation among minimum and low wage earners. But in the example of university salaries, surely, we are comparing essentially identical jobs. So, what exactly is happening here? Is there no standardized pay-scales for professors, associate professors, senior lecturers, etc, which are applied to all who qualify for the position? Are there actually separate scales for males and females (which - call me naïve - I would have thought illegal)? Is it something to do with males staying in the profession longer and accumulating raises? Is it just a matter of males dominating, fairly or unfairly, the higher and better-paid echelons, thus skewing the averages?
I found a Stats Canada report on salary scales at Canadian universities, which reveals quite starkly the gender discrepancy at each and every Canadian university when all ranks are combined, but does not break down the gender make-up of the various different ranks. It does also expose the disparity in sheer numbers of male and female staff members (although again no break-down for the different ranks), and also the large discrepancy in possible salaries within ranks. The report notes that: "many factors can influence salaries, including qualifications and number of years teaching. As well, some universities impose a maximum to the salary range for each rank while others have an open-ended scale."
So, does this mean that male professors are typically better-qualified and/or of longer standing than their female equivalents? If that is the case, are the women in any position to argue against that, or to claim that they are being underpaid? Is the problem, then, one of finding out why women are less-qualified, and/or why they typically have fewer years of tenure? It is at this point that I envision the hoary issue of child-bearing and child-rearing raising its ugly head...
Clearly there are a lot of different competing factors involved in the setting of academic salaries. Which raises the question of how, in that case, the University of Essex was able to equalize male/female salaries, and in what respect exactly they are claiming to have "eliminated the gender gap".
The article points out that, on average, full-time female academics are paid 11% less than men in the UK, with some institutions like Queen's University Belfast and King's College London showing significantly higher discrepancies. I'm sure the situation is pretty similar elsewhere, including here in Canada.
Now, much of the overall gender pay gap is a result of a disproportionate numbers of women working part-time jobs, and their disproportion representation among minimum and low wage earners. But in the example of university salaries, surely, we are comparing essentially identical jobs. So, what exactly is happening here? Is there no standardized pay-scales for professors, associate professors, senior lecturers, etc, which are applied to all who qualify for the position? Are there actually separate scales for males and females (which - call me naïve - I would have thought illegal)? Is it something to do with males staying in the profession longer and accumulating raises? Is it just a matter of males dominating, fairly or unfairly, the higher and better-paid echelons, thus skewing the averages?
I found a Stats Canada report on salary scales at Canadian universities, which reveals quite starkly the gender discrepancy at each and every Canadian university when all ranks are combined, but does not break down the gender make-up of the various different ranks. It does also expose the disparity in sheer numbers of male and female staff members (although again no break-down for the different ranks), and also the large discrepancy in possible salaries within ranks. The report notes that: "many factors can influence salaries, including qualifications and number of years teaching. As well, some universities impose a maximum to the salary range for each rank while others have an open-ended scale."
So, does this mean that male professors are typically better-qualified and/or of longer standing than their female equivalents? If that is the case, are the women in any position to argue against that, or to claim that they are being underpaid? Is the problem, then, one of finding out why women are less-qualified, and/or why they typically have fewer years of tenure? It is at this point that I envision the hoary issue of child-bearing and child-rearing raising its ugly head...
Clearly there are a lot of different competing factors involved in the setting of academic salaries. Which raises the question of how, in that case, the University of Essex was able to equalize male/female salaries, and in what respect exactly they are claiming to have "eliminated the gender gap".
Thursday, June 02, 2016
How are we to understand "honour" killings?
I was well aware that it happened, but I had no idea of just how rampant and widespread so-called "honour" killings were in Pakistan and in other benighted countries where these tragedies occur.
My attention was drawn by reports of a recent example in which Maria Sadaqat, a young schoolteacher in a small hill-town near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, was beaten and then burnt to death by a group of townsmen for turning down a marriage proposal from the son of the owner of a school where she had taught. The intention apparently was for Ms. Sadaqat to take over the running of the school but, bizarrely, the owner's son at the time of the marriage offer was already married with a daughter, which seems to me like a perfectly good reason for Maria and her father to refuse the marriage offer. However, the school owner and other religious zealots of the town did not see it that way, and decided to take things into their own hands (the school owner himself was one of the aggressors in the murder, and apparently proud of the fact). The so-called elders of the town are now pressurizing the girl's family to settle out of court, and to respect the "honour" of the situation.
This of course is just one of many such occurrences in Pakistan, India and many other countries where fundamentalist religious convictions hold sway. What I hadn't appreciated, though, is the extent of it: Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission estimates that 1,100 women were killed in the country last year in so-called honour-killings. The United Nations estimates that 5,000 women are victims of honor killings each year worldwide, mainly in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, as well as other Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries, and even within migrant communities in western countries like France, Germany and the UK. Women's advocacy groups, however, suspect that the real number may exceed 20,000.
The other problem of course is that most occurrences go unreported and uncounted (they are more likely to be reported as suicides or accidents), and the statistics do not include non-lethal honour attacks such as acid-throwings, abductions, mutilations, beatings, etc (both reported and unreported). Most honour killings are carried out by family members and relatives, but a small number are also carried out by people outside the family who perceive some loss of honour for the family or for the community as a whole. The main reasons behind honour killings are domestic disputes, alleged illicit relations, and exercising the right of choice in marriage.
It seems inconceivable to us in the West that these kinds of benighted attitudes still prevail in other parts of the world (not that we have our own shit completely together, but at least we have managed to leave some of our more egregious medieval customs behind). I have never actually heard anyone trying to justify such practices as honour killings, but I imagine it would have to be couched in religious or quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo that would mean very little to me anyway, and that would in turn beg its own (non-existent) justification.
My attention was drawn by reports of a recent example in which Maria Sadaqat, a young schoolteacher in a small hill-town near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, was beaten and then burnt to death by a group of townsmen for turning down a marriage proposal from the son of the owner of a school where she had taught. The intention apparently was for Ms. Sadaqat to take over the running of the school but, bizarrely, the owner's son at the time of the marriage offer was already married with a daughter, which seems to me like a perfectly good reason for Maria and her father to refuse the marriage offer. However, the school owner and other religious zealots of the town did not see it that way, and decided to take things into their own hands (the school owner himself was one of the aggressors in the murder, and apparently proud of the fact). The so-called elders of the town are now pressurizing the girl's family to settle out of court, and to respect the "honour" of the situation.
This of course is just one of many such occurrences in Pakistan, India and many other countries where fundamentalist religious convictions hold sway. What I hadn't appreciated, though, is the extent of it: Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission estimates that 1,100 women were killed in the country last year in so-called honour-killings. The United Nations estimates that 5,000 women are victims of honor killings each year worldwide, mainly in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, as well as other Mediterranean and Persian Gulf countries, and even within migrant communities in western countries like France, Germany and the UK. Women's advocacy groups, however, suspect that the real number may exceed 20,000.
The other problem of course is that most occurrences go unreported and uncounted (they are more likely to be reported as suicides or accidents), and the statistics do not include non-lethal honour attacks such as acid-throwings, abductions, mutilations, beatings, etc (both reported and unreported). Most honour killings are carried out by family members and relatives, but a small number are also carried out by people outside the family who perceive some loss of honour for the family or for the community as a whole. The main reasons behind honour killings are domestic disputes, alleged illicit relations, and exercising the right of choice in marriage.
It seems inconceivable to us in the West that these kinds of benighted attitudes still prevail in other parts of the world (not that we have our own shit completely together, but at least we have managed to leave some of our more egregious medieval customs behind). I have never actually heard anyone trying to justify such practices as honour killings, but I imagine it would have to be couched in religious or quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo that would mean very little to me anyway, and that would in turn beg its own (non-existent) justification.
Are sales of books plateauing? Slipping? Increasing?
Russell Smith reports that, in recent months, sales of e-books are plateauing and even slipping, while sales of paper books are advancing after years of decline. Setting aside the fact that industry figures only include book sales from established publishing houses and not the burgeoning trade in self-published books (which are mainly in electronic format), this still seems like it might be something of a watershed in the now age-old argument of e-books vs. paper books.
The reason for the slump in e-books is not readily apparent. It may be because e-book prices have been maintained at an artificially high level (which may, or may not, now change). Or, more worrying, it may be a sign that the whole industry is in a downturn.
Most readers have an opinion on the electronic/paper book debate - personally, I prefer old-style paper books - but I'm sure that no one want to see reading as a whole decline.
The reason for the slump in e-books is not readily apparent. It may be because e-book prices have been maintained at an artificially high level (which may, or may not, now change). Or, more worrying, it may be a sign that the whole industry is in a downturn.
Most readers have an opinion on the electronic/paper book debate - personally, I prefer old-style paper books - but I'm sure that no one want to see reading as a whole decline.
How many book sales make a best-seller?
My wife and I recently attended an author talk and signing by the prolific and popular British author Julian Barnes. There was certainly no lack of interest in him and his books: the hall was packed and we were reduced to standing in the side-aisle, despite our having an official ticket. Barnes regularly appears in best-seller lists, and we got to wondering what actually constitutes a "best-seller" in this day and age. More specifically, we wondered how many books a week someone like Julian Barnes actually sold.
Best-seller lists, whether in newspapers or websites, never indicate just how many books were sold, and so, as usual, I resorted to Wikipedia, and their list of best-selling books. The page first describes the difficulty of obtaining accurate and realistic figures, particularly for older books. The Bible is estimated by Guinness World Records as having sold over 5 billion copies, and sales of the Qu'ran and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book probably also number in the billions. Old classics like Don Quixote, A Tale of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers, Les Misérables, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Odyssey almost certainly also belong on the list of best-selling books of all time, but concrete figure are impossible to find.
Among the stand-alone fiction best-sellers for which figures ARE available, top honours go to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, and Rider Haggard's She, each of which is estimated to have sold over 100 million copies. Following on are the ilk of C.S Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, all the other Harry Potter books, Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Johanna Spyri's Heidi's Years of Learning and Travel, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Jack Higgin's The Eagle Has Landed, Richard Adams' Watership Down, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County, Lew Wallace's Ben Hur, and Johnston McCulley's The Mark of Zorro, all of which have registered sales of above 50 million copies each.
However, none of this gives me any idea of what a contemporary writer has to do get into the week's top 10 best-sellers lists. I have no idea whether, in Canada for example, a best-selling author sells 500 books? 1,000? 10,000? And it seems I am not the only person wondering. The Book Promotion Hub has done some homework on the subject, which reveals that each best-seller list has its own secret algorithm, and also that a first-week blitz is an important factor in the ratings. In general terms though, the article suggests that Amazon's Top 5 would typically sell over 7,000 copies a week, and that around 3,000 in a first week would get you onto The Wall Street Journal's best-seller list, and 9,000 onto the New York Times' list.
How this would translate to the Canadian market is unknown. I can only surmise that, with one-tenth of the population, dividing by ten is probably a reasonable guide, so maybe a paltry 500 - 1,000 copies would do it.
Another blog by a best-selling author suggests that 5,000 to 10,000 copies a week would probably get you onto the New York Times' Top 15 list. Bear in mind also that the time of year makes a big difference (for example, January is typically a low sales month, and September a high sales month, and the difference can be as much as a factor of two), and also that these figures refer to the relatively expensive hardback books that are typically released first, and the number of paperbacks sold are anybody's guess.
What I take away from all this is that "best-seller" is a notoriously slippery concept, which few people have a very good handle on. Add to this the notion that there are companies out there that specialize in getting your book onto the best-seller lists (for a price), that slipperiness becomes downright slimy and unpleasant.
It does at least give some idea, though, of just how few books sold constitutes a best-seller - in Canada, we are probably looking at less than 1,000 hardback copies sold, plus an unknown number of paperbacks. As for how many books Julian Barnes sold last week, I fear that we will never know.
Best-seller lists, whether in newspapers or websites, never indicate just how many books were sold, and so, as usual, I resorted to Wikipedia, and their list of best-selling books. The page first describes the difficulty of obtaining accurate and realistic figures, particularly for older books. The Bible is estimated by Guinness World Records as having sold over 5 billion copies, and sales of the Qu'ran and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book probably also number in the billions. Old classics like Don Quixote, A Tale of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers, Les Misérables, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Odyssey almost certainly also belong on the list of best-selling books of all time, but concrete figure are impossible to find.
Among the stand-alone fiction best-sellers for which figures ARE available, top honours go to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, and Rider Haggard's She, each of which is estimated to have sold over 100 million copies. Following on are the ilk of C.S Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, all the other Harry Potter books, Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Johanna Spyri's Heidi's Years of Learning and Travel, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Jack Higgin's The Eagle Has Landed, Richard Adams' Watership Down, E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County, Lew Wallace's Ben Hur, and Johnston McCulley's The Mark of Zorro, all of which have registered sales of above 50 million copies each.
However, none of this gives me any idea of what a contemporary writer has to do get into the week's top 10 best-sellers lists. I have no idea whether, in Canada for example, a best-selling author sells 500 books? 1,000? 10,000? And it seems I am not the only person wondering. The Book Promotion Hub has done some homework on the subject, which reveals that each best-seller list has its own secret algorithm, and also that a first-week blitz is an important factor in the ratings. In general terms though, the article suggests that Amazon's Top 5 would typically sell over 7,000 copies a week, and that around 3,000 in a first week would get you onto The Wall Street Journal's best-seller list, and 9,000 onto the New York Times' list.
How this would translate to the Canadian market is unknown. I can only surmise that, with one-tenth of the population, dividing by ten is probably a reasonable guide, so maybe a paltry 500 - 1,000 copies would do it.
Another blog by a best-selling author suggests that 5,000 to 10,000 copies a week would probably get you onto the New York Times' Top 15 list. Bear in mind also that the time of year makes a big difference (for example, January is typically a low sales month, and September a high sales month, and the difference can be as much as a factor of two), and also that these figures refer to the relatively expensive hardback books that are typically released first, and the number of paperbacks sold are anybody's guess.
What I take away from all this is that "best-seller" is a notoriously slippery concept, which few people have a very good handle on. Add to this the notion that there are companies out there that specialize in getting your book onto the best-seller lists (for a price), that slipperiness becomes downright slimy and unpleasant.
It does at least give some idea, though, of just how few books sold constitutes a best-seller - in Canada, we are probably looking at less than 1,000 hardback copies sold, plus an unknown number of paperbacks. As for how many books Julian Barnes sold last week, I fear that we will never know.