“Your Book is Now a Best Seller! --An Expert's How to Write a Book Step-by-Step Guide”
Don't get hung up on whether your book is a best seller... it is. And you're about to learn why and how you can use one of the most important marketing tools when you write a book!
by Steve Manning
My recent article caused one of my students to write me and ask just what a best-seller is. Were there any precise numbers? Things you could say things you can't say? Well, a best-seller isn't nearly as clearly defined as you might think. In fact, the whole purpose of a best-seller designation is really a marketing strategy. Here are some insights you can take advantage of with your upcoming best-selling book.
Within human behavior, there is a concept called social proof. Because one or two people do something, that really isn't sufficient reason to cause you to do the same thing. But if 1,000, 2000, 20,000 people all do the same thing, each of us believes they can't all be wrong . There must be some valid reason for them and doing that. Even if we can't see it's ourselves.
So it is with the best-seller concept. If you're thinking of buying a book, you really would like society to validate your choice. And the term best-seller tells you that a larger number of people have chosen this book probably for the same reasons you have. That's social proof. And I'm not even going to discuss the concept of a self fulfilling prophecy. The concept of a best-selling book is nothing more nor less than an innovative marketing strategy that first popped up in a Kansas newspaper in 1889.
Although I haven't examined the repercussions I have noticed the intriguing fact that the top five one publishing companies produce 80% percent of the traditionally recognized bestsellers in any given year. The top ten publishing companies control 98% of the best sellers.
Ironically sometimes a publisher does not want the best seller designation for their book. In recent years, the term best-seller has become synonymous with mass market. A book author producing high literary quality doesn't really want, and can actually be hurt by, the best seller designation.
From a legal standpoint, there is no legislated number that must be reached for a book to embrace the mantle of best-seller. There are a few industry accepted norms, but they vary with individuals, categories, technology, geography, time, perception, and several other factors. Best seller lists are even split depending on how the book is made. You have hardcover lists, paperback lists, and the hybrid trade paperback lists (same page format as hardcover but with paperback binding, go figure!)
Time for a little unabashed, self promotion: If you haven’t asked for my Free CD, “How to Write a Book On Anything in 14 Days Guaranteed!” then you’re just plain nuts! It’s free, no charge, but you can bet this $100 CD will be carrying that price tag very shortly. How do you get it? Just email me at Free CD, Please, or CD_please@writeabooknow.com and make sure you include your name, your mailing address and your telephone number in the email. Now, back to the article…
The Bible is the best selling book of all time (or close to it) but you won't find it on any best-seller list. Books sold by Amazon.com aren't even included on the New York Times best seller list. There are ebooks that have sold hundreds of thousands, but you won't find them on traditional best-seller lists either. I've seen best selling used as a term to describe the best selling hunting and fishing book published in North Dakota (I don't remember the exact parameters, but it's something similar to that). Generally, all that can be said about the definition of a best-seller designation is that some usually respected authority declares that a book has sold a large number of copies.
But even here there's the problem of verification. While book sales from Amazon.com do not play a role in the New York Times bestseller list, Amazon's book sales are completely verifiable. The NYT list is produced by a closely guarded secret formula of sales by specific bricks and mortar bookstores. And this can be fudged. The authors of a book in 1995 bought 10,000 copies of their book in small numbers at local bookstores and the book ended up in the #8 position for 15 weeks on the NYT list. The subsequent speaking engagements, additional sales and other marketing windfalls more than made up for the initial investment by the authors.
And here's another marketing twist: lists are usually published in conjunction with the frequency of publication in which they appear. Weekly for printed media but hourly for Internet media. You can see why a concerted effort to sell a book on Amazon at, say, 10:00 a.m. this Friday could easily result in the quite valid claim that the book had reached the top 100 list on Amazon. It was there for only an hour, but it was still there.
And every media outlet, from national daily to monthly trade magazine serving a specific business category [garages, for example] can legitimately have their own bestseller list. It leads one to believe that if you can't claim your book is a best-seller in some way, you're just not trying hard enough.
This next example isn't a book, but it gives you the premise of the idea. There is a very innovative marketer, very high integrity by most standards, who operates the best selling seminar company in the U.S. serving the marketing needs of dentists and chiropractors. Well, not that this should diminish the value of his product, I'm confident it's absolutely wonderful, but his is the ONLY seminar company serving the marketing needs of both dentists and chiropractors. So, of course, it's the best-selling one.
To give you one final idea of just how weird the concept of 'best seller' is, Publishers Weekly, a widely respected industry publication, offered a list of the best selling novels in the United States. The criteria for inclusion on the list are secret. But whatever they are, they dictated the exclusion of any book in the Harry Potter series.
In short, 'best-selling' is a marketing term and has nothing to do with literary quality, or academic advancement. That's probably not the way it should be, but that's the way it is.
While we're on the topic of strategies, and if you haven't already done so, feel free to
subscribe to my FREE on-line course, "How To Write A Book On
Anything in 14 Days... or Less" it's packed with tips, techniques
and tactics for writing your book faster than you ever thought possible! But
ONLY if you're SERIOUS about writing a book NOW!
Wait a minute! You mean you still don't have your writing program, "How to Write A Book On Anything in 14 Days Or Less... Guaranteed!"? Well click How to Write A Book!
Time for a little unabashed, self promotion: If you haven’t asked for my Free CD, “How to Write a Book On Anything in 14 Days Guaranteed!” then you’re just plain nuts! It’s free, no charge, but you can bet this $100 CD will be carrying that price tag very shortly. How do you get it? Just email me at Free CD, Please, or CD_please@writeabooknow.com and make sure you include your name, your mailing address and your telephone number in the email.
Like this article? Link to it from your web site or blog -- just copy/paste this HTML:
Just about everyone has asked me, what's the cheapest, fastest, most cost effective way to turn your manuscript into a real,
book-store book. Cheap as in 50 cents per copy. Fast as in can
I have it by this afternoon. Cost effective as in, what if I only
want to produce one or two copies. Take a look at this information for all the answers you'll ever need.