This is an interesting article about how books are made into bestsellers and it appears to have little to do with how many books have been sold. From this article it appears even an average book that a publisher decides is going to be a bestseller becomes one because of the pre-publicity for the book.
The publisher may decide they like you. You may have a good list of contacts. You might have a weird lifestyle that could be milked. And what about this about one of my favourite books-
Imagine 2000 books printed just to send out for pre-publications marketing. That's our entire print run around here. So what do you think about this?
3 comments:
Yikes. How fascinating - the stuff about Da Vinci Code as well. Hmm...
But going sideways - its interesting what makes a 'successful book' from the point of view of the publishers, in many ways.
If for example, a writer is given a vast advance, and the book almost makes that amount in royalties but not quite - leaving the publisher with a shortfall, its thought of as unsuccessful. if on the other hand, writer gets a low advance, and the book does OK, and sells more than the advance - its a success. Even though it may have sold a tiny proportion of the sales of the first book..
It's mad the whole thing Vanessa. I'm immune to a lot of here, but I suppose if I ever get off the continent (writing-wise) I'll have to deal with it all. It seems crazy- shouldn't bestsellers sell best? And shouldn't successful books be decided by the number sold? At least partly.
This is an interesting piece and if that's how books become bestsellers, I'm sorry it's never the best way out. The piece on Roy gives a lot to think about the publishing industry.
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