What did he conclude from this? That if (clean) furry authors are to be successful, it will be by selling outside furry fandom:
For three to four years now I've been increasingly of the belief that our fandom simply isn't very interested in non-spoogey literary material, and I'm tentatively (still mulling it over) interpreting the data I'm presently gathering from the Birkenhead series as corroboration. The current level of sales to almost a 100% pure SF readership-- still 800-900 per week of the Birkenhead books, I'd estimate-- plus the mostly good reviews I'm getting from SF readers are solid arguments that the stuff is at least readable, while the sales level argues that the series is also easily available and "out there" in the public marketplace to be purchased by anyone, including furries. Yet only a tiny handful of furs are buying "Birkenhead", and I suspect (based on timing-- "Phil, I just bought one of your Birkenhead books!" someone e-mails me, and poof-- suddenly I see two or three furry titles listed for a day or two) they're mostly longtime fans and/or people I know personally.
I've never believed that getting the fandom in large numbers to read my stuff would be easy. But I never would've dreamed that it'd actually be easier to persuade hard-bitten, cynical mainstream SF readers to buy books about anthro bunnies in space instead. I'm a fur all the way down to the bone-- don't get me wrong here. I love my fandom and the people in it very much, and don't plan to leave it until the day I die. But at this point I'm pretty much forced to abandon all hope of selling significant numbers of books to them. If they won't buy the _very_ furry Birkenhead books when readers who don't have the slightest interest in anthro are snapping them up left and right, well... There's a fundamental problem or mismatch of some sort somewhere along the line.
I'm going to write what's in my heart-- that's always been my approach and probably always will be. If it sells, wonderful. If not, I won't miss any meals for the lack. Since furry is very much in my heart, that's probably what I'll mostly continue to write. But... In the past, I've advised new authors that the skies are the limit, that we're a growing, thriving fandom and surely a growing, thriving furry literary market will emerge.
I don't think I can do that in good conscience anymore. We're waiting for Godot; I'm coming to believe. I don't think it's ever going to happen, after seeing how furs have reacted-- or rather, failed to react-- to Birkenhead.
Phil has been writing more about the success of this series in the Furry Writers' Guild forums. This week, he got all seven books into Amazon's top-100 Kindle SF sellers (they're in the top-80 as of today; three are in the all-SF top-100).
What did he conclude from this? That if (clean) furry authors are to be successful, it will be by selling outside furry fandom:
He also mentioned in another thread that he would never have approved the cover concept, but is happy that it worked out so well.