Maple Leaf Rag about the sales of the "Maple Leaf Rag", for example that 1 million copies of the sheet music were sold in the composer's lifetime, making Scott Joplin the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music. Joplin's first biographer Rudi Blesh wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America". However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of
Maple Leaf Rag Joplin's contract with a $0.01 royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4, or approximately $ in current value. Later sales were steady and would have given Joplin an income which would have covered his expenses; in 1909 estimated sales would have given him an income of $600 annually (approximately $ in current prices). In addition to sales of sheet music, it was also popular in orchestrations for dance bands and brass bands for years. Joplin failed to repeat the success of Maple Leaf Rag, with none of his other famous rags (such as The Entertainer) garnering as much