How Does a Book Become a Bestseller?

So, how does a book become a bestseller? Throughout my twenty-one years in trade book publishing, I’ve asked this question, I’ve been asked this question, and I’ve discussed potential answers to this question with other book publishing professionals from time to time. The closest I ever got to an answer was “Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.”

That’s not much of an answer, but, on some level, it made sense. For me as an editor, the throwing-it-against-the-wall part was about helping make the book’s content the best that it could be and shepherding that title through production to create an attractive product that had the greatest chance of “sticking.” I left the rest up to the author and the marketing and publicity experts.

What I witnessed on several occasions is that two books in the same genre by authors with similar backgrounds and with similar publicity and marketing efforts could see two totally different outcomes: one makes the bestseller list or at least enjoys substantial sales, while the other gets a lukewarm reaction and sells relatively few copies. As far as I can tell, there’s just no surefire approach to publicity and marketing that will ensure that a book is financially successful much less that it will reach bestseller status. What’s more, making it onto the list doesn’t necessarily translate to financial success. 

In the study “Success in books: a big data approach to bestseller,” which was published in EPJ Data Science on April 6, 2018, the authors endeavor to address the mystery of which books become successful and how they reach this status.[1] Notice that they don’t endeavor to “solve” the mystery; they are simply addressing it. That’s a start. I read this article from beginning to end, hoping for a clue. While the data is certainly interesting, the mystery remains unsolved.

As stated in the aforementioned study, more than 3 million books are published each year, but only 500 make it to the New York Times bestseller list. I did the math, which is quite a feat for some editors: That’s a 1 in 6,000 chance of becoming a bestseller. That’s a way better chance than winning the Florida lottery. But to put this in perspective, there’s also a 1 in 3,000 chance of a person being struck by lightning in their lifetime.[2] In other words, there’s a better chance of being struck by lightning than making the New York Times bestseller list. My takeaway here is that when the clouds roll in, I should get out of the pool and go inside to read a good book.

Incidentally, it is raining here in sunny South Florida as I work on this post. And, as it turns out, I am inside reading—in this case, not the book I “should” be editing but an insightful article: “How Bestseller Lists Actually Work—and How to Get on Them” by Tucker Max, the cofounder of Book In a Box (which is now Scribe Writing). In this August 30, 2016 Entrepreneur article, the author suggests that bestseller lists do not reflect objective reality.[3] I found his article quite insightful and informative, and rather than reiterate what Tucker Max wrote, I suggest you read the article from beginning to end if you aspire to be a bestselling author.

Another interesting article I read on the topic of New York Times bestsellers appeared in the business section of The New York Times itself. The August 30, 2012 article “Long Odds for Authors Newly Published” by James B. Stuart discusses bestselling author J. K. Rowling’s decision to publish her book The Cuckoo’s Calling under a pseudonym.[4] The book sold a modest number of copies, according to the article, and there was little fanfare—that is, until it was revealed that J. K. Rowling was the author. 

The Cuckoo’s Calling then went on to receive rave reviews and made it to the New York Times bestseller list. This doesn’t surprise me. Rowling’s fan base didn’t care (or even know) about the “make-believe” first-time author with no platform, but they did care that an author they like wrote another book. There’s no math required here. Same book. Different author. The more popular you are, the more people will want to read what you write.  

So maybe the question shouldn’t be “How does a book become a bestseller?” but rather, “How does an author become popular?” The best answer I can come up with is “Keep throwing yourself out there and see if anyone sticks to you.”

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[1] https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-018-0135-y; accessed 1/26/19.

[2] https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/flash-facts-about-lightning/; accessed 1/26/19.

[3] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/280520; accessed 1/26/19.

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/business/cuckoos-calling-reveals-long-odds-for-new-authors.html; accessed 1/26/19.