WOw are you kidding? If you don’t mind me asking how did you get a book deal? How did you get started? I never read my friends book so I don’t know how good it is, but I would assume being a very good writer is a great help.
When we published "A Patriot's History of the United States" in 2004, we had two bidders, and went with Sentinel. We got a good deal---far better than we thought we'd get.
The book did well, getting Wall Street J. and NYTimes reviews, and they asked me for a follow up. That book was "America's Victories." We shipped out a lot, but this was 2006, and when the war turned down some, the bookstores returned a lot. So the publisher let that one go out of print. But my 3d book with them was a huge hit, "48 Liberal Lies." I got a good advance, but it sold even better. True: I had one guy who saw me on "Fox and Friends" who called me and wanted to give one copy to every legislator. I thought he meant in Washington. He said, "No, every legislator in America." I thought he was a kook. I said, "That will be expensive." He said, "How much you think $100,000 will get us?" He personally bought 7,680 copies, and I signed every one, and we sent one to every legislator in the USA.
Eventually, that book sold close to 60,000 copies, but because it was steady and not a burst, it never once made the NYTimes bestseller list. Then came "Seven Events that Made America," which did really really well, only the publisher printed 110,000 copies because they thought my appearance on Glenn Beck would cause it to skyrocket. As I said, it made the NYTimes and sold over 50,000, but it's not viewed as a "hit."
My most recent two books---two volumes of "A Patriot's History of the Modern World, vol. 1 and 2,"---has done about 10,000, but again, is viewed as a flop (even though volume 2 has a $35 price tag!). My novels have done ok---no publicity at all, print on demand, but I like them.