How to Turn a Book Into a Best Seller

I still have a lot to learn about selling books.

But here’s what I’ve figured out so far.

I believe the following to be true: “To turn a book into a bestseller, first, write a bestseller.”

It all begins with that.

If you write a book about esoteric techniques of nordic accordion players in the late sixteenth century, it’s probably not going to be a best seller, despite whatever marketing you throw at it.

If you write A Wrinkle in Time, good luck preventing it from becoming a best seller. It’s so compelling that people are going to talk about it and feature it on episodes of Ted Lasso and it will sell like hotcakes without your intervention because you’ve already done all the hard, important work just by writing it.

Authors are competing with millions of books that have already been written and competing with another couple hundred thousand coming out every year. A vast quantity of these books are better and more compelling than anything I’ve written or that I’m capable of writing. (Which begs the question, why even bother? But that question is moot because people like me appear to have little choice in the matter.)

Because of all this competition, visibility is an issue, or “discoverability.” Books are discovered via marketing and word of mouth, which aren’t the same thing, Marketing is throwing money and effort at promoting a book. Word of mouth is what results from people discovering the book (via whatever means, perhaps those marketing efforts or other word of mouth), loving it, and spreading the word.

Most books languish. Sad but true. There’s too much competition. There’s little or no marketing. And the marketing is ineffective anyway because the books aren’t good enough for word of mouth to kick in. So they sell a few dozen (or, if the author is lucky, a hundred or so, or a few hundred) copies to mostly family and friends and maybe a handful of strangers. This is, I think, the fate of most books.

Or maybe some really diligent, hard-working author has built up a readership because of solid craftsmanship and regular, compelling newsletters (or the like) and has built a small but loyal following that results in a larger body of sales, maybe in the thousands. The books are niche so they don’t take off like Harry Potter but there is an audience that keeps coming back. I believe that happens.

So where does that leave somebody like me? I haven’t written a best seller yet. I think my first novel, A Time and a Place, is analogous to Phyliss Gotlieb’s science fiction novel Flesh & Gold. That’s how I feel about it, anyway. A Time and a Place is a solid book that didn’t embarrass itself. Some people like it; other people didn’t quite get it. It sold about five hundred copies, first to family and friends, then seemed to bust slightly beyond that circle to a few strangers via marketing, then it landed a BookBub (an indie marketing tool) and sold another fifteen hundred copies, for a total of about two thousand. That’s pathetic compared to books by someone like John Green but respectable for an indie book. I say it’s analogous to Flesh & Gold because I think it’s the same kind of book: distinctive science fiction, reasonably well-written (Phyliss’s book is no doubt better written). I enjoyed and respected Flesh & Gold and recommend it but, like A Time and a Place, it’s never going to get the word of mouth to take it to the next level.

My last book, Adventures in the Radio Trade: A Memoir, is definitely niche. It’s for fans of CBC Radio and radio broadcasting in general, and maybe readers of memoirs. It’s enjoyed good, initial marketing via an excellent review by Kirkus and is currently sitting at 4.8 out of 5 stars with a handful of reviews on Amazon.ca. But as of yet it hasn’t taken off. It will be getting a bit more press in the next few months, which will help a bit, but I don’t intend to enrich Jeff Bezos any further by advertising on Amazon, which will likely spell the death knell for it ultimately, unless some miracle takes place.

So to sum up:

To turn a book into a bestseller, first you have to write a bestseller. (I haven’t done that yet.)

Then, somehow, you have to make it discoverable. This involves marketing and advertising. (I’m capable of some clever marketing but I can’t afford, nor am I brave enough, so spend the kind of money probably necessary to make a book really discoverable.)

Then, once you’ve made your best seller discoverable, word of mouth kicks in, if (and only if) your book really is worth talking about.

That’s what I’ve figured out so far.

Now to roll up my sleeves and write that best seller.

PS. I love that Phyliss posted her own saucy 5 star review on Amazon.ca for Flesh & Gold, after Amazon recommended her own book to her. :-)