What makes a best seller?

Sadly, if anyone knew, we'd all be stinkin' rich.

Who knows...it might be a good book. Might be controversy. Might be celebrity.

If you watch the lists, you see mostly repeat offenders. People get comfortable. I think that makes most bestsellers.

Sometimes, you see someone slip onto the list. If they keep putting out pageturners, then they tend to continue to stay on that list.

I don't think there's a formula, just a lot of luck.

My name under the title.




Hmmm. Perhaps too much wine this evening.

A novel written with the most excellent skills in the craft of writing. The best of, plot, English skills, storytelling etc.

Plus, a novel that is in tune with what current readers want, and are reading.

Or, a gaggle of former novels with a loyal following.

IMHO

It seems, nowadays, that controversy is a good key element to make a best-seller, or at least get loads of people to buy your book. Other than that, you have to write a page-turner and have a lot of luck. I guess.

Units shipped, based on initial print run, based on pre-orders.

The NYT sends out a form to reporting bookstores, and the form is already preprinted with the top books. The bookseller simply must report how many are sold.

It's possible to know where you'll debut on the List several weeks before your book comes out.

There is also a space to write in other titles, but you can guess how often that happens.

LA Times has something similar. You may notice that bestselling authors all visit the same bookstores on their tours. These are the reporting stores.

You didn't really think it was based on the most copies sold, did you?

JA Konrath said:

You didn't really think it was based on the most copies sold, did you?

Click to expand...

Next you'll be telling us there's no Santa.

Thank you anyway, I've always wondered.

The audience. Initial orders may get a book on the bestseller list at first, but what keeps it there are the number of subsequent readers.

Lots of people buy it.

caw.

This is a tricky question because "best seller" doesn't necessarily mean "best written novel.'

But be that as it may, I think you have two kinds. There's your best seller, and then there's your runaway best seller. The ordinary variety of best seller is created by the unsolicited hype of several New York critics.

If you've managed to pique the interest of certain key people at publications like the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other such periodicals containing the words, "new" and "york" in their banner, then you can be sure to have a best seller on your hands.

Of course, to acheive that goal, you need to be hip, in a very ripe sort of coctail party way. Which of course means absolutely nothing. But it doesn't hurt to be well connected... at least as long as your connections stay connected. And as we all know, such things are subject to change without notice.

Well, okay, I'll level with you. It's all run by a small cabal of insanely rich Howard Hughes types who spend all afternoon in states of drug induced catatonia, burbling an occasional word or phrase. Most of it is unintelligible, but their underlings have a special system, based on the Kabbalah, which can turn the meaningless babble into something resembling dogma.

Like tachyons in a particle accelerator, each little literary dogma-zon only lasts for a fleeting instant, but if you are lucky enough to have something in the slush pile that vaguely relates to one, while it is in existance, you stand a good chance of being rejected. Which is much better than being ignored. Just ask any New Yorker.

And that's all there is to it!


Oh, yeah, and if you want to write a runaway best seller, just latch on to urban legend and aim for a folk audience. Never fails.

Bestseller

JA Konrath said:

Units shipped, based on initial print run, based on pre-orders.

The NYT sends out a form to reporting bookstores, and the form is already preprinted with the top books. The bookseller simply must report how many are sold.

It's possible to know where you'll debut on the List several weeks before your book comes out.

There is also a space to write in other titles, but you can guess how often that happens.

LA Times has something similar. You may notice that bestselling authors all visit the same bookstores on their tours. These are the reporting stores.

You didn't really think it was based on the most copies sold, did you?

Click to expand...

It is based on number of copies sold. It's just that the copies need to be sold from specific locations in a specific time period, or by pre-publication orders. Books that aren't on the list turn into bestsellers with amazing regularity.

blacbird said:

Lots of people buy it.

caw.

Click to expand...

That's what I was going to say.

Sales. A lot of sales make for a best seller.

The USA Today best seller list is based on BookScan information.

(BookScan is barcode scanning at the cash register at about 80% of US bookstores.)

Theres no formula or everyone would be doing it (but wait isnt it what genres are, the same formulas that guarantee sales?) But basically good stories with good characters that people enjoy reading. Now why some books sell ten million copies (like the da vinci code) while others (very well written books) sell only 10000 I dont know. I think some marketing has to do with that but mostly its just luck.

JA Konrath said:

Units shipped, based on initial print run, based on pre-orders.

The NYT sends out a form to reporting bookstores, and the form is already preprinted with the top books. The bookseller simply must report how many are sold.

It's possible to know where you'll debut on the List several weeks before your book comes out.

There is also a space to write in other titles, but you can guess how often that happens.

LA Times has something similar. You may notice that bestselling authors all visit the same bookstores on their tours. These are the reporting stores.

You didn't really think it was based on the most copies sold, did you?

Click to expand...

You're gonna make these folks very sad, JA..........

In another thread, an agent was reported to have written in his rejection note:

"Editors want books that appeal to low common denominators with respect to plot but are well-enough written to maintain a pace that holds the writer's attention."

Allowing for the Freudian slip (as one might imagine he meant "the reader's attention") this suggests that publishing industry professionals, whose livelihoods depend on picking the occasional best-seller, believe this is a winning formula.

It seems a reasonable assumption. Apparently, this is also what drives the movie business currently, where they're after much the same thing, giving it the name 'high concept'. By this they mean an appealing story that can be summarised in a shortish sentence.

e.g. In Hollywood-speak, Forrest Gump could be: 'Sincere but retarded try-hard makes good.'
If you wanted to inject a bit of pathos to add complexity, it could be:
'Sincere but retarded try-hard makes good, without making out.'

The advantage of such pithiness is that there's time to pitch your concept during the 25 seconds you share an elevator with a studio executive you've been stalking in the hope of manufacturing just such a opportunity.

It makes sense, in a way. When friends want to tell me about a book they've read and begin with a lengthy discourse on the setup, I can feel my eyes glazing over in less than 30 seconds. In a time-poor age, limited attention spans rule, so I can see why there's a demand for books/TV shows/movies based on a universally appealing premise that's evident and easy to describe.

That's why it's so important to be able to condense the essence of anything we write into easily digestible blurbs and synopses for inclusion in our queries to stand a chance of being read by the people who count.

The bottom line is, it's a crap shoot. Those few in the industry that know anything about quality storytelling and quality writing are NOT making the book buys. The marketing department buys books. You could write the perfect book, one everyone loved; the agent, the acqusitions editor, everyone. If the marketing department, most of whom wouldn't know a good book if it bit them on the ***, gives it the thumbs down, you are out of luck. As my friend JA so often says, for every 1 good book published, there are 10 mediocre ones. I would say he's being generous. I think it's more like 1:100.

The mid-list is dying, kids. The marketing department is why.

EJ

Man, do we have a lot of depressing threads posting for the holidays.

mkcbunny said:

Man, do we have a lot of depressing threads posting for the holidays.

Click to expand...

Reality is often depressing.....................

EJ

The answer should be: A cracking good story. Actually, the real honest-to-goodness answer seems to be an aggressive marketing strategy and a big advertising budget. Oh, dear, I fear I'm sounding a little jaded.

cleoauthor said:

The answer should be: A cracking good story. Actually, the real honest-to-goodness answer seems to be an aggressive marketing strategy and a big advertising budget. Oh, dear, I fear I'm sounding a little jaded.

Click to expand...

If you're a first time author, the aggressive marketing strategy and big-time advertising budget will have to come from you. Publishers today toss books into the pool at random and it's up to the author to do what h/she can to see they don't sink.

EJ

Oh, gomie, puh-lease. Where are you getting your information? There are two first-time novelists in my writing group whose books are coming out in 2006 and the facts that you state:

Those few in the industry that know anything about quality storytelling and quality writing are NOT making the book buys. The marketing department buys books.

Click to expand...

Publishers today toss books into the pool at random and it's up to the author to do what h/she can to see they don't sink.

Click to expand...

do not accurately reflect the way the process works at all. Would you please refrain from making such hyperbolic statements without supporting evidence?

Birol said:

Oh, gomie, puh-lease. Where are you getting your information? There are two first-time novelists in my writing group whose books are coming out in 2006 and the facts that you state:





do not accurately reflect the way the process works at all. Would you please refrain from making such hyperbolic statements without supporting evidence?

Click to expand...

If you wish to believe that editors still buy books, well, more power to ya. The facts contradict it and the facts are out there if you care to go look for them. If an editor likes a book, they take it to the marketing department. If the marketing department can figure out where to 'place' it, and they think it will sell, you become a published author. It matters not if the book is good, bad, or somewhere in between. And, if you don't live up to their minimum sales figures, which are going higher all the time, they will drop you like a hot rock.

I'm not being negative or discouraging. I just find it helps to stay in touch with reality. Keeps me focused.

EJ

Don't forget Oprah. I was at work the other day (at Barnes and Noble), and overheard a woman picking up "Million Little Pieces" and saying "Well if Oprah likes it, I have to buy it." I suggested we put an "Oprah likes this" sticker on the $150 atlas that no one ever buys.

Birol said:

Yeah, well, your reality is quite a bit different than the reality I've encountered.

Click to expand...

Well, I was referring to the book publishing industry reality. Which reality are you into?

EJ