Bestseller Does Not Equal Success
By Jerry D. Simmons | November 21st, 2011 | No Comments » (Click to add yours!)
Many new authors are focused too much on making the “bestseller list” and not creating great content. Certainly this is a worthy goal but does not equate to being a successful or lasting author. Having your book placed on a bestseller list provides certain marketing and sales advantages but is not the key to success. To any publisher, successful authors write a number of terrific books that sell consistently over the course of many years. Any writer who can accomplish this is worth their weight in gold to a publisher.
Having a book make a bestseller list too early in the author’s career places tremendous pressure on the writer and publisher to make every release a bestseller. In turn the company often over distributes, shipping more books to booksellers than they can sell, as a way of creating the perception a new release is going to be a bestseller. The excessive shipment puts pressure on marketing to drive readers to the store to purchase the new publication within a short time frame. Failure at any juncture creates a negative marketplace perception which results in heavy returns and will be viewed as a failure of the book and author.
The best road to the bestseller list is creating a breadth of content that shows steady growth over a number of years eventually landing a new title on the bestseller list. Then should a subsequent release not make the list it is not so disastrous because it will direct consumers to the older titles which may result in overall increased sales. Making the bestseller list before developing a backlist of older titles causes publishing pressures that often result in career ending mistakes. It is great to make any bestseller list from the publisher standpoint but as an author understand and be prepared for the consequences.
For more information read the accompanying article: What It Takes for a Book to Become a Bestseller.
Tags: Book Publishing
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