# Anyone can write a bestseller (not joking)



## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Okay, so this is going to sound like a rant, but it really isn't. This is a post to encourage everybody who is floundering, yet wants to make good money at this business. I mean this sincerely - read the top books in your genre. I repeat - read the top books in your genre. You might find that you are concentrating on the wrong things. 

Now, this piece of advice isn't for all of you who write for yourselves and see imitating the bestsellers to be crass. If that's the case, godspeed. Probably a lot of you are making major money, anyhow, since you do this for love, and I admire you all. Again, this thread is strictly for those who see this whole thing as a way to make money.

Here is what I have learned in my little experiment. Up until now, I've avoided the bestsellers in my genre.  I decided, however, to go ahead and study and analyze and see what makes the readers gobble up books like Halloween candy. 

What I found was an eye-opener. I just finished a book that is in the top 100 of the Kindle store. The heroine is truly TSTL. The hero has NO redeeming qualities, other than being hot and wealthy. The dialogue is the worst I've seen. Typos abounded, and the writing was truly middle-school level. The cover wasn't that great, and the title had no imagination whatsoever. Even the sex scenes were poorly written. I swear to god, "Fifty Shades of Grey" deserves a Nobel Prize for literature compared to this book. 

As I was reading this, I realized that I had it in me to write a bestseller. So does anybody else. Because, within this book that I'm reading, lies something truly magical. There's a formula in there, and anyone can duplicate it.  I also realized that I was writing something very similar to this book, and I stopped writing it, because I thought my book was ridiculous and I hated it. Now, I have decided to go ahead and finish what I started, because I realized that, even though I hate it, readers just might love it. 

So, if you're struggling with money, do what I did. Read the top sellers. You just might realize that you don't need an editor, you don't have to be a decent writer, you can really slap on any old cover, your characters don't have to be likable, you don't need a good story. You just need elements that readers demand. If you can analyze what those elements are, you just might be on your way.

I mean this advice in all seriousness. I'm really not trying to be a troll or cynical. I honestly believe that, if you can drill down to what readers expect, you can make a go of this business.


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

Sadly, there is truth to this.

I normally would have thought this depended on genre and readers, but I took a look at a book that had raving reviews. The cover was mediocre. The look inside showed amateur writing. Yet, people loved it. It was a psychological thriller/horror. 

That being said, I know exactly the formula you're talking about. Though I could tell the writing was amateur from the inside, it still somehow kept my interest.... not sure how, or what was in this book that connects with readers past the typos and poor sentence structure. But it did. Now, personally, I think a book has a much better chance at success with quality writing, cover, and blurbs. But it is interesting to see books that aren't very good be top sellers. Though people rave about how important it is to have a quality book, a series, cover, and a blurb, I think a huge part of the formula to success that people don't like to mention is luck, and money for promotion. And that's just the truth when pursuing pretty much any art.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

So what's the formula?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Kalypsō said:


> So what's the formula?


Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

You've confirmed what I've believed all along. What makes a reader read--and love--a book to its end, is not quantifiable. Every book has an element of author magic in it. (Today, it seems, a billionaire is the ultimate wizard.  )

I read a book, a while back now, that was full of typos, repetitions, and awkward phrasing. It was a book to make an editor weep. I read the book to its end. And then I asked myself why. The only answer I could come up with was that the book had heart. There was an elemental rawness/realness in its pages that was captivating.

That said, it might well have been a brilliant book had the craft issues been resolved.

Is there a formula we can all follow that will lead us to success? Formula defined as:
_
for·mu·la (noun)
1. a mathematical relationship or rule expressed in symbols.
2. a fixed form of words, especially one used in particular contexts or as a conventional usage.
_
I doubt it. But there's nothing to stop anyone from trying.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Kalypsō said:


> So what's the formula?


It depends on the genre, of course. I can only tell you what the formula is for billionaire erotica/romance. It's a broke heroine who needs a lot of money for something (usually a student loan, could be medical bills or anything like that), an aloof, jerky billionaire who offers the heroine the money she needs in exchange for having sex with him or some other proposition (in the billionaire erotica/romance world, this is not considered prostitution, at least not in the heroine's mind), and dark secrets being hidden by the aloof billionaire. It helps if the heroine has also experienced a past tragedy, but not necessary. The billionaire must somehow "claim" the woman, either because the electricity is just so hot or because he literally falsely imprisons her against her will. There also should be some degree of mental issues on the part of one or both.

Voila! Those are the "rules." Add your own flair, and you're on your way!!!!!


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## HappyToHelp (Sep 27, 2014)

Okay, this is a really big noob question (preparing myself to get hit with rotten tomatoes), how do I find the bestsellers on Amazon?  I type in best sellers in the search function, and then look for my genre (romance) and am not certain that they are best sellers.  :/

...I agree that there is a lot of poorly written works floating around out there.  I came across some the other night, and the only conclusion I could come to was that these authors somehow had, or had tappen into, a really large following.  

At this point in my life I am writing for money, but I do still really enjoy the process. ... My exhusband and I were heavily invested in real estate about 10 years ago (100% my idea.)  We've been able to get out of most of the properties by the skin of our teeth, but right now I have one house going into foreclosure (in my name only) and another one that I wish he'd let go into foreclosure, as I'm barely able to make ends meet trying to pay on it.  I've been trying to do the right thing financially and honor our divorce decree (paying my half of the expenses on these properties) for a long time now--seeing how it was all my idea to begin with, and I've dug an impressively deep hole.  I'm throwing everything I have at my writing trying to dig myself out.  It's a stressful way to live and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. :/


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Deblombardi said:


> It depends on the genre, of course. I can only tell you what the formula is for billionaire erotica/romance. It's a broke heroine who needs a lot of money for something (usually a student loan, could be medical bills or anything like that), an aloof billionaire who offers the heroine the money she needs in exchange for having sex with him or some other proposition (in the billionaire erotica/romance world, this is not considered prostitution, at least not in the heroine's mind), and dark secrets being hidden by the aloof billionaire. It helps if the heroine has also experienced a past tragedy, but not necessary. The billionaire must somehow "claim" the woman, either because the electricity is just so hot or because he literally falsely imprisons her against her will. There also should be some degree of mental issues on behalf one or both.
> 
> Voila! Those are the "rules." Add your own flair, and you're on your way!!!!!


Hmm. Wow. Thanks. I think you are a genius. I have a hard time seeing stuff like that, but no problem reproducing it. I see a new erom serial on the horizon. hugs


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## Bluebonnet (Dec 15, 2013)

I'm not sure it's a matter of just following the formula for a specific genre. I think the key is that the people who write "bad" books that become bestsellers are _good storytellers._ They have the ability to keep you interested in the story, keep you reading all the way to the last page, in spite of their writing shortcomings.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

LolaWilder said:


> Okay, this is a really big noob question (preparing myself to get hit with rotten tomatoes), how do I find the bestsellers on Amazon? I type in best sellers in the search function, and then look for my genre (romance) and am not certain that they are best sellers. :/
> 
> ...I agree that there is a lot of poorly written works floating around out there. I came across some the other night, and the only conclusion I could come to was that these authors somehow had, or had tappen into, a really large following.
> 
> At this point in my life I am writing for money, but I do still really enjoy the process. ... My exhusband and I were heavily invested in real estate about 10 years ago (100% my idea.) We've been able to get out of most of the properties by the skin of our teeth, but right now I have one house going into foreclosure (in my name only) and another one that I wish he'd let go into foreclosure, as I'm barely able to make ends meet trying to pay on it. I've been trying to do the right thing financially and honor our divorce decree (paying my half of the expenses on these properties) for a long time now--seeing how it was all my idea to begin with, and I've dug an impressively deep hole. I'm throwing everything I have at my writing trying to dig myself out. It's a stressful way to live and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. :/


Go to Amazon.com, and click on "ebooks." Then click on "bestsellers." You can then drill down to your genre, and you can see the bestsellers in your particular genre. In my case, I'm writing billionaire erotic romance, so it's obvious which books in this particular sub-genre are the bestsellers. Then pick them up and read them. It's an eye-opener, let me tell you.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Kalypsō said:


> Hmm. Wow. Thanks. I think you are a genius. I have a hard time seeing stuff like that, but no problem reproducing it. I see a new erom serial on the horizon. hugs


Good luck! PM me, I'll give you the names of the books that I'm reading right now. They're pretty cheap!


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## BeachB (Sep 3, 2013)

And write in First person point of view from what I've read.  Thanks for your insight/formula!


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I've read so much romance over the past year... I recently started writing porn and it kind of broke my need to write for "myself." It also put money motivation way at the top of my priority list. When you see money, it's easy to get motivated by it. haha, lol. I decided to start reading for pleasure and writing for money. So, I'll read all the scifi books I want now. Actually, I'll pm anyway, couldn't hurt.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

But there are a million billion quadrillion billionarire eromances out there that are not selling, that follow the formula. What's the explanation for that? Many of them well-written. 

I mean, EVERYBODY is writing in this subgenre. And OK, a lot of the books on the bestseller list seem to be this (or claimed by a weretiger, which is same deal). Many of them well-written. But here's the thing--some are selling well and some aren't. Explanation? Got to be more to it than that.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

EC Sheedy said:


> You've confirmed what I've believed all along. What makes a reader read--and love--a book to its end, is not quantifiable. Every book has an element of author magic in it. (Today, it seems, a billionaire is the ultimate wizard.  )


I agree with this.

However, I also agree that writing to a formula can make a bestseller.

I think there are two kinds of bestsellers. There are break-outs and there are copy-cats.

Break-outs often touch us because of their magic. (Copy-cats sometimes do too, especially the first wave, before all the goodness has been leached out of the idea.) Break-outs are not original by any stretch of the imagination, but they are usually somewhat different than what is currently popular. They may present a new twist on an old idea or a resurgence of something buried or something that feels very fresh. Whatever the case, they always have that ephemeral magic feeling to them. You don't know why, exactly, but you know it's good. Often, they are well-structured stories as well, but that's not the magic part... The magic part is unquantifiable.

After the break-out book comes out, everyone loves it, and they just want to experience reading it again. So, they go searching for other books just like it. And that's when the copy-cats start. In the old days of trad publishing, there was a finite amount of copy-cat surge, because editors got sick of reading the same story over and over again. But readers are not editors. They are more like toddlers who will watch the same Disney movie over and over and over and over and over. So, now, with self-publishing, the copy-cat phase lasts for-ev-ah. I mean, the teen vampire craze really didn't start fizzling until last year, and Twilight came out in 2005. That's almost ten years of copy-cat halo. Craaaaazy.

(And technically, we could lump all the billionaire stuff into the copy-cat halo of Twilight, considering that 50 Shades is just Edward and Bella without blood drinking and golden eyeballs. So, in this case the formula is: "Hi. I'm very sexy, and I want to hurt you. But I also don't. Oh, the internal agony as I struggle between loving you and mangling you.")


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> But there are a million billion quadrillion billionarire eromances out there that are not selling, that follow the formula. What's the explanation for that? Many of them well-written.
> 
> I mean, EVERYBODY is writing in this subgenre. And OK, a lot of the books on the bestseller list seem to be this (or claimed by a weretiger, which is same deal). Many of them well-written. But here's the thing--some are selling well and some aren't. Explanation? Got to be more to it than that.


Not to be cynical, but I'm going to sound cynical, anyhow. But I think that, for certain genres, "well-written" might work against it. For smut, I think that people really don't want to read someone who puts Hemingway to shame. They just want their story, told in simple language.

Other than that, there's an X factor, I guess. But I stand on my belief - it increases your chances of writing a breakout hit if you read and try to imitate what's hot. I really do.


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## Molly Tomorrow (Jul 22, 2014)

Deblombardi said:


> Not sour grapes. I'm being 100% sincere. If you can find me a top-selling billionaire romance without those elements, then I will admit that I'm wrong. But I don't think that I am.


For some of the elements you listed, that's like saying "find me a bestselling zombie novel without hordes of undead cannibals". Some aspects of the dynamic between the couple you've described kind of define the genre, so will be common to all books. That said, Deborah Bladon and Krista Lakes both currently have Billionaire Romance books in the top #100 that, beyond the basic rich guy meets not-so-rich girl trope, don't even vaguely resemble your formula.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Molly Tomorrow said:


> For some of the elements you listed, that's like saying "find me a bestselling zombie novel without hordes of undead cannibals". Some aspects of the dynamic between the couple you've described kind of define the genre, so will be common to all books. That said, Deborah Bladon and Krista Lakes both currently have Billionaire Romance books in the top #100 that, beyond the basic rich guy meets not-so-rich girl trope, don't even vaguely resemble your formula.


Cool, I'll check them out. I think that I have Deborah Bladon on my to-read list, anyhow. It would be a relief to read something that doesn't fit this formula, to be honest with you.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

I only just read Twilight, and it was not great writing. I didn't think the voice sounded like a seventeen-year-old girl, for one thing. But there was incredible tension and credibility in the dialog between Bella and Edward, and that's what made it work. As Valerie said above, people will read the same thing over and over, but what makes a book stand out is that you believe the characters really have something going beyond what's on the page.


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

This is quite like the advice in WRITING THE BLOCKBUSTER NOVEL by Albert Zuckerman. He is far less cynical and goes into specifics, but copying the ones who do it is at the core.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

travelinged said:


> This is quite like the advice in WRITING THE BLOCKBUSTER NOVEL by Albert Zuckerman. He is far less cynical and goes into specifics, but copying the ones who do it is at the core.


Yes, it's all about hooking into what many readers are looking for, and giving it to them. Whether you write well or badly by English Teacher standards is irrelevant, if you're doing that. The best-seller I read on vacation was awful by those standards, but I read it through to the end, and I could see why it sold well despite often feeling like the author describing his vacation (well, aside from the bits about assassins and lost treasure, I presume).

'Then they flew to Venice in their Learjet 5000 XT with uprated Pratt and Whitney X2000 engines. Heroine bought a DaVinci purse before she and Hero took a water taxi to St Mark's Square and walked to Leonardo's Restaurant. They ate Squid pizza and drank Fancy Wine as they chatted to the waiter in perfect Italian and reminisced about Hero's years as a SEAL and Heroine's childhood as an Olympic horse-rider and marksman, before checking in to Fancy Hotel. Then something exploded.'

Obviously, just writing like that won't make you a best-seller, but it's far more likely to find a big audience than the kind of things I normally write. Didn't Dan Brown once say that he began writing because he read a best-seller on vacation and thought 'I can do that'?

Edit: ah, yes: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_middlebrow/2006/03/the_dan_brown_code.html



> Brown resolved to become a writer when he read Sidney Sheldon's The Doomsday Conspiracy while vacationing in Tahiti.


That article actually contains some interesting and relevant thoughts on how he tries (or tried, back in 2006) to make his novels best-sellers.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

_Writing_ a "bestseller"--a product equal to or better than many of the current "bestsellers" isn't the hard part.

(And in fairness to bestsellers, the quality is all over the board. Some bestsellers really are every bit as trite and pedestrian as the original poster indicates. Others are in fact quite well written with rich characters and crisp dialogue. It varies by author and even among books by the same author.)

_Selling_ a "bestseller" is the hard part. Because although there are plenty of authors out there who write much better and spin a tale better than James Patterson (and I think even James Patterson would agree with that), James Patterson is at the top of the charts, and they're not. And it's not because of the writing at this point--it's because of his market position.

So, yes. It would in fact be fairly easy to write something just like the less worthy "bestsellers," but even if you do, it doesn't mean that your "best seller" will actually sell. Because the other factors that made those "bestsellers" actual bestsellers don't necessarily have all that much to do with what's between the book's covers.

So the best you can really do is to write the most exciting stories and richest characters that you can--do the very best job that you can--because it's one of the few factors in the entire equation that you actually control.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

zandermarks said:


> _Writing_ a "bestseller"--a product equal to or better than many of the current "bestsellers" isn't the hard part.
> 
> (And in fairness to bestsellers, the quality is all over the board. Some bestsellers really are every bit as trite and pedestrian as the original poster indicates. Others are in fact quite well written with rich characters and crisp dialogue. It varies by author and even among books by the same author.)
> 
> ...


Yep.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Bluebonnet said:


> I'm not sure it's a matter of just following the formula for a specific genre. I think the key is that the people who write "bad" books that become bestsellers are _good storytellers._ They have the ability to keep you interested in the story, keep you reading all the way to the last page, in spite of their writing shortcomings.


It's that old axiom: Give them a reason to turn the page. And that means hooking them into the story. You have to make them care about the characters and what happens to them, no matter what the genre. It seems that compelling stories have the best chance of winning, even if they are told over and over again.


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## MT Berlyn (Mar 27, 2012)

Deblombardi said:


> Not to be cynical, but I'm going to sound cynical, anyhow. But I think that, for certain genres, "well-written" might work against it. For smut, I think that people really don't want to read someone who puts Hemingway to shame. They just want their story, told in simple language.
> 
> Other than that, there's an X factor, I guess. But I stand on my belief - it increases your chances of writing a breakout hit if you read and try to imitate what's hot. I really do.


The late actor, Paul Newman, described it as the "tyranny of luck." I'd even go as far to say the opposite is also true...the tyranny of bad luck. You can follow the conventional wisdom and sink like a rock, and follow none of it and rise like an unexpected volcano. In saying this, I do believe one can increase the chances of even moderate success by following the formula behind what genuinely appears to be successful.

I'd say the disturbing part is what constitutes "well written" in a lot of the top sellers. Maybe it's more accurate to say _well formulated_.


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## Kitty French (Dec 3, 2012)

Deblombardi said:


> Read the top sellers. You just might realize that you don't need an editor, you don't have to be a decent writer, you can really slap on any old cover, your characters don't have to be likable, you don't need a good story. You just need elements that readers demand. If you can analyze what those elements are, you just might be on your way.


Aside from the first four words, I'd say pretty much the opposite of this. So many threads on Kboards these days seem to focus on how to get rich quick from self publishing without any respect or regard for readers.


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## Dmotley (Sep 26, 2014)

Ad for bestselling erotica titles. I bought many, read many, analysed some of them. I made some notes about how drama develops in these stories. Here is it:

Drama development:

- She wants to know something about him, possibly catch a lie
- She asks a question
- He asks why She's asking
- She says She needs some truth
- He's trying to turn a conversation another direction
- She's angry
- He tries to calm Her
- She asks why He doesn't answer her questions
- He says what She asks doesn't matter
- She says it does matter
- He starts talking how much He likes her body
- Aroused, She's melting and loosing her mind
- He continues pushing on her with his lust
- She, already aroused, takes a breath and pushes Him away
- He asks what's wrong with Her
- She says it's because He doesn't answer her questions
- He asks why that's matter
- ...and so forth depending on situation... 

I have also paid attention that many below_100_rank titles are more poorly written than many other titles with worse ranking. Sometimes I had to force myself to end a book.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

> But there are a million billion quadrillion billionarire eromances out there that are not selling, that follow the formula. What's the explanation for that? Many of them well-written.
> 
> I mean, EVERYBODY is writing in this subgenre. And OK, a lot of the books on the bestseller list seem to be this (or claimed by a weretiger, which is same deal). Many of them well-written. But here's the thing--some are selling well and some aren't. Explanation? Got to be more to it than that.


This. I've read bestselling books that aren't great but are compelling but I've also picked up a few that are highly rated and just awful. I wonder if the writers have developed a strong following in communities outside of Amazon that translates to a few days of high sales and 5 star reviews.

I'd also say, if you spend enough on promotion at the right places and hit the tropes readers are looking for, you can hit the bestseller lists. Staying there is a whole other matter.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.


I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)

(And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)

I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

BeachB said:


> And write in First person point of view from what I've read. Thanks for your insight/formula!


But make sure you alternate between the two main characters' POV while writing first-person. Use alternating chapters with the characters' name listed, so you know whose head you're in.


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## Dmotley (Sep 26, 2014)

Kit Tunstall said:


> I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)
> 
> (And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)
> 
> I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


Absolutely agree with you. That apply to every bestseller erotica book I read.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> "Hi. I'm very sexy, and I want to hurt you. But I also don't. Oh, the internal agony as I struggle between loving you and mangling you.")


Sometimes, I just need a LIKE button. +1!


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Maybe it's just my ego screaming that I don't want to be the next _anybody_, but I'd sooner be the one to write the next breakout hit than the next copycat...despite knowing what a fool's errand it might be.


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## Amber Rose (Jul 25, 2014)

Bluebonnet said:


> I'm not sure it's a matter of just following the formula for a specific genre. I think the key is that the people who write "bad" books that become bestsellers are _good storytellers._ They have the ability to keep you interested in the story, keep you reading all the way to the last page, in spite of their writing shortcomings.


1000% this is true.

I agree with the OP's sentiments wholeheartedly, but there are some oversights.

For starters, you are ignoring all the gazillion books that DO follow the formula, and that fail miserably (by comparison). Go further past the Top 100, into the top 100,000, and you will start to find them.

So the (very valid) question is : *why is it that a specific book hit the top 100 list, and the others did not?* Sometimes its the authors reputation, but let's ignore that. Sometimes it's luck. Hmmm. Not a huge believer of luck in business. So I think it is *hard work*. Not in the writing part, but in the everything else part.

I would love to have the time and means to take the Top 100 list, pull out all the famous authors, and examine how the not so famous authors got there. Because they sure as hell didn't fall there from the sky. They must have been marketed/discovered in the right way, at the right time. As the OP says, a lot of these books are pretty interchangeable with each other.

Someone asked here, a while back, how to spend $2k on marketing (I think it was $2k). And everyone said: DON'T! Rather spend it on formatting, editing etc. But what's the logic? The best edited book still needs to be FOUND before the editing is appreciated.

I think that you will probably find that a lot of these top 100 books from "new" or unknown authors have a huge marketing budget, or at the very least a very lengthy marketing process, that just focusses on eyes-on-book, rinse and repeat. Go and have a look at the thread that HM Ward posted about how she marketed EACH book she released (in 2012 or 2013 I think). Holy sh*t! That's dedication, strategy, vision and determination all rolled into one.

I really do think that that is key

So the point is: a lot of us have ALREADY written a bestseller. We just haven't told the world about it yet.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Kitty French said:


> So many threads on Kboards these days seem to focus on how to get rich quick from self publishing without any respect or regard for readers.


I'd also add a bit of self-respect to that. I know I could skimp on some parts of the process, but I sleep better at night knowing that I don't.


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> But there are a million billion quadrillion billionarire eromances out there that are not selling, that follow the formula.


This is the key point, and the one that's normally totally missing from these conversations.

The normal logic is "If you want to write something that sells well, copy what's being done by the authors whose books are selling well". It doesn't normally occur to anyone that quadrillions of others are doing exactly that and barely selling a single copy. I wasn't prepared to see such logic, reason and statistical analysis injected into the thread, in this way. Would you mind please _not_ raising the tone of the conversation so much, without at least one post's prior warning


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

Dmotley said:


> Absolutely agree with you. That apply to every bestseller erotica book I read.


All kidding aside (and snarkiness retired), the elements I listed are common to those types of books, but some authors can really pull them off. I might know what to expect, but they keep me reading because they can write well, or they're good with portraying the emotions. There is definitely more involved than just following a formula for most of the bestsellers. For example, I just read "Down and Out," and it had a lot of the tropes I mentioned, but it was well-written, funny, hot, and even tender and sweet in places. I don't remember the author's name offhand, but she can write well. I think that is the ultimate key to success. You can combine all the tropes, but unless you do it in a way that resonates with readers, it's never going to be a bestseller.


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## bobbic (Apr 4, 2011)

Bluebonnet said:


> I'm not sure it's a matter of just following the formula for a specific genre. I think the key is that the people who write "bad" books that become bestsellers are _good storytellers._ They have the ability to keep you interested in the story, keep you reading all the way to the last page, in spite of their writing shortcomings.


Yes, good stories! And characters that readers love. And a little suspense of whatever kind to keep you reading.


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## Kitty French (Dec 3, 2012)

Edward M. Grant said:


> But books rarely become best-sellers unless they give readers what they want. And few of us have millions to throw at advertising agencies to make a bad book a best-seller before readers realize it's bad.
> 
> Studying what's selling well seems a pretty good way to see what readers really want.


Absolutely. Studying what's selling is essential.

This was the advice I didn't agree with - 'you don't need an editor, you don't have to be a decent writer, you can really slap on any old cover, your characters don't have to be likable, you don't need a good story. You just need elements that readers demand.'

You DO need to be a decent writer. You DO need an editor. You CAN'T 'slap on any old cover', and OF COURSE you need a good story. 
Yes, of course you need to be aware of the elements of the genre, but it's not a magic formula to get rich quick.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Kit Tunstall said:


> I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)
> 
> (And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)
> 
> I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


Good god, I just laughed so hard I cried! You're really hilarious, Kit, and soooo dead-on.

That said, I know what you're saying about having to be a good writer to make it big. But, I swear to god, the book I just read made my eyes bleed. It really did. Amateur night all the way. Still, I kept reading. I think that I was hate-reading it, but reading it all the same.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Edward M. Grant said:


> But books rarely become best-sellers unless they give readers what they want. And few of us have millions to throw at advertising agencies to make a bad book a best-seller before readers realize it's bad.
> 
> Studying what's selling well seems a pretty good way to see what readers really want.


what they want, from what little I know, is a good story. One they can get lost in. The plot, the devices--they are just the vehicle to deliver the story, the feeling of living a story. You can study all the tropes in the world and not write a living, breathing story.

That said, lots of folks make great money writing to trends. Just saying that if I'd looked at the kinds of heroes, the settings, the plot devices that sold, I don't think I'd have made much money. I couldn't have created compelling characters to live in that world.

I don't think any readers were saying, "You know what I wish I could read? A book about New Zealand rugby!" But I knew it was a great story. I knew I had a great character. And he was! Going out for his second outing now--he gets to be the hero again in my new book. He's still great, too.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Deblombardi said:


> I think that people really don't want to read someone who puts Hemingway to shame. They just want their story, told in _simple language_.


This is unintentionally funny. I think you mean William Faulkner.

My favorite Hemingway quote is something like, "He went to the river. The river was there."  Hemingway was known for writing _very_ stripped-down prose.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Anyone can write a bestseller? Really? Anyone?   Well, I know I can't. I hate people too much to change my writing and go against myself to give them what they want. But I don't need to be a bestseller to live off my writing, so who cares?


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

Kit Tunstall said:


> I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)
> 
> (And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)
> 
> I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


Agree.

You also have to write a short prequel novella, another novella that takes place a year or two later (maybe there's a baby or wedding involved) and then continue the series by writing about the main characters brother that we met briefly in book 1.

A lot of the bestsellers in erotica romance seem to work with book bloggers, instead of paying for expensive advertising.


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## StraightNoChaser (Dec 29, 2013)

I don't think anyone can write a best seller, especially by following a formula that they personally dislike. Some people can, sure, but anyone?

The eye bleeder you just read, was that the author's first book? Were they popular before with a big mailing list and loyal fans, possibly because of previous, better written books? Sometimes I think authors in this subgenre get lazy and bored. Their latest bestseller wouldn't have gone far if it was their first book, but now they have the reach to push it up the charts.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

katherinef said:


> Anyone can write a bestseller? Really? Anyone?  Well, I know I can't. I hate people too much to change my writing and go against myself to give them what they want. But I don't need to be a bestseller to live off my writing, so who cares?


As I said, godspeed! But there are many who do want to make bank in this business, so that post is for them.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Same principle as "anyone can make a million in business, just come up with a great idea". Piece of cake.


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## Scout (Jun 2, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> So, in this case the formula is: "Hi. I'm very sexy, and I want to hurt you. But I also don't. Oh, the internal agony as I struggle between loving you and mangling you.")


This is hilarious!


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

Like others have said, it comes down to the abilty to be a good storyteller. 

James Patterson knows how to tell a story in a simple way. Patterson doesn't bog his books down with two much description and it works. Short chapters work well too. 

There's a couple new adult romance authors who are not the best writers but they can sure tell a good story and they sell incredibly well. 

I see writing books just the same as I see making movies or music, it's the entertainment industry and if you can entertain/tell an engaging story, you have a better chance of being a bestseller.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Deblombardi said:


> As I said, godspeed! But there are many who do want to make bank in this business, so that post is for them.


Yes, I'm aware this is a get-rich-quick scheme, but I don't think it's that simple. If it were, everyone would have a bestseller. I know there are many books out there that follow all these popular tropes and everything, and they still don't sell. What about visibility and marketing? I suppose I can't just write a book that has all the right ingredients to be a bestseller, throw it out there under an unknown pen name with no marketing and expect it to end up in top 100, or is that what you're suggesting?


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

valeriec80 said:


> This is unintentionally funny. I think you mean William Faulkner.


I was thinking the same thing, except with James Joyce in mind.


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

katherinef said:


> Yes, I'm aware this is a get-rich-quick scheme, but I don't think it's that simple. If it were, everyone would have a bestseller. I know there are many books out there that follow all these popular tropes and everything, and they still don't sell. What about visibility and marketing? I suppose I can't just write a book that has all the right ingredients to be a bestseller, throw it out there under an unknown pen name with no marketing and expect it to end up in top 100, or is that what you're suggesting?


I don't think the post was meant to say that it's easy to become a bestseller, or that even someone doing everything right is guaranteed to do it. I think it was just saying that to become a bestseller, you don't necessarily have to be a great writer or have professional services. It definitely helps, I think, but if your book is visible and resonates with readers, it's not always necessary.

Like I said before, I think more of it has to do with promotions and luck than people care to admit. I agree that hard work and careful strategy does it for some people, but others become bestsellers without having done any strategy at all.

That being said, it really just depends on the person. We can work hard, follow all the careful advice of those who are already successful; but in a business like this, nothing is guaranteed. That's my opinion on it, anyways.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

katherinef said:


> Yes, I'm aware this is a get-rich-quick scheme, but I don't think it's that simple. If it were, everyone would have a bestseller. I know there are many books out there that follow all these popular tropes and everything, and they still don't sell. What about visibility and marketing? I suppose I can't just write a book that has all the right ingredients to be a bestseller, throw it out there under an unknown pen name with no marketing and expect it to end up in top 100, or is that what you're suggesting?


I admit, that's the X factor. Marketing has to come into play, otherwise nobody will know about the book. I will say, though, if you write a book that covers the current bestselling tropes, once you get some visibility, I would think that you would have a much better chance of hitting it. For instance, a series that has a permafree plus marketing of the permafree will go further if it covers the tropes than a series that doesn't. That's all I'm saying...


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I think it's about striking a nerve. It's really, really hard to tell which books will strike that nerve. I think we can all point to books that we think are crappy but that struck the nerve (and struck gold). Agents and publishers don't know which books will strike the nerve. The authors don't, either, I don't think. You just put your books up there, write them as well as you can, present them as best you can, promote them as best you can, and hope that one of them, at some point, will strike that nerve. That's really all we can do. 

(It's also scary, by the way, not to know WHY a book struck the nerve. Because you don't know, it feels like "magic," and you always worry that with the next book, the magic will be gone. And I think that for some people, that has been true. They write some breakout book, and struggle with the next books to replicate that level of success, and can't for the life of them tell why.)

I think stories are mysterious. I do.

I also don't think there's one path. I know lots of folks swear by permafree. For me, it's been Select that's worked the magic. Neither way is "right," and nor is writing to tropes vs. not doing that. I'm not even sure which way is a surer path. Which makes it better, because that way, we all get to do what we want. And I'm all about that.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

This to me confirms something I've been thinking about for a while, that the one essential thing to selling books is being a good storyteller. You can hire editors, proofreaders, cover artists. That part's easy. Heck, you can hire people to do promotions.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Yes, anyone *can* write a bestseller.

Actually doing it is a whole different matter.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Am I the only one who doesn't know what TSTL means?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Kit Tunstall said:


> I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)
> 
> (And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)
> 
> I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


Kit, this is too funny!

I'm so glad that I write romance that's more about love than lust. Nothing wrong with lust, mind, but love? That's much more demanding. 

And that butt rash thing? That's just tragic.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Micki23 said:


> I had to look it up. (too stupid to live)


Ah...I could have done that I guess but it sort of defeats the purpose of using an abbreviation. Now what is this "lol" that all the kids are saying these days?


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## Drake (Apr 30, 2014)

I write Erotica (Not porn by my definition), and I do it because I like it.  Not just to make money, but that doesn't hurt either.  I read a lot of other work in my genre, not to copy it, but to see what works and what doesn't, what sells and what doesn't, you know, RESEARCH.  Identifying elements that work and applying them to your own work is not copying, although has anyone noticed how much the new Ford Transit work van looks like the bestselling Freightliner Sprinter Vans?  Just my two cents.


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## Kitty French (Dec 3, 2012)

Rosalind James said:


> You just put your books up there, write them as well as you can, present them as best you can, promote them as best you can, and hope that one of them, at some point, will strike that nerve. That's really all we can do.


That just about sums it up for me too.

What especially resonates in Rosalind's advice is to give every aspect of your book your best, rather than to just concentrate your efforts on hitting genre tropes to the exclusion of all the other important stuff. 
Unless of course your only objective is to try to make fast money, and you genuinely don't care about the quality of your work, building a career, or respecting your readers.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

If you think about it, the Billionaire trope is just another permutation of the Hero's Journey.  The Heroine gets a call to adventure, sometimes initially refuses it, then crosses the threshold from her ordinary world into the new world - the billionaire's world - with the billionaire as her mentor.  There, she goes through trials, makes some allies and enemies, and finally faces her special fear.  From this conflict she is reborn, and she receives the treasure - her elixir.

Well, it could be written that way.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

valeriec80 said:


> This is unintentionally funny. I think you mean William Faulkner.
> 
> My favorite Hemingway quote is something like, "He went to the river. The river was there."  Hemingway was known for writing _very_ stripped-down prose.


My favorite Hemingway quote: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2014)

Drake said:


> I write Erotica (Not porn by my definition), and I do it because I like it. Not just to make money, but that doesn't hurt either. I read a lot of other work in my genre, not to copy it, but to see what works and what doesn't, what sells and what doesn't, you know, RESEARCH. Identifying elements that work and applying them to your own work is not copying, although has anyone noticed how much the new Ford Transit work van looks like the bestselling Freightliner Sprinter Vans? Just my two cents.


+1


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

Does this means there's bestseller challenge in the air?      

Two months to write and release a formula romance that will burn brightly on its way to the top 100.
(But it won't blaze a trail, because that, er, would defeat the purpose...)


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Kit Tunstall said:


> But make sure you alternate between the two main characters' POV while writing first-person. Use alternating chapters with the characters' name listed, so you know whose head you're in.


Because otherwise the reader might mistake your hot sex scene for a somewhat embarrassing masturbation scene.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

zandermarks said:


> _Writing_ a "bestseller"--a product equal to or better than many of the current "bestsellers" isn't the hard part.
> 
> (And in fairness to bestsellers, the quality is all over the board. Some bestsellers really are every bit as trite and pedestrian as the original poster indicates. Others are in fact quite well written with rich characters and crisp dialogue. It varies by author and even among books by the same author.)
> 
> ...


+1 Well said.


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

Robert Brumm said:


> Ah...I could have done that I guess but it sort of defeats the purpose of using an abbreviation. Now what is this "lol" that all the kids are saying these days?


Lots of Lollipops, I'm pretty sure.

The TSTL heroine is the one who's being stalked by a serial killer but defiantly refused to accept police protection or change her routine, or the group of kids who say "Somebody's murdering our friends one by one? And one of our friends is missing? Let's split up and search for her!"

Bestseller formula - I totally agree that there's a formula, and I am the first to advise people to study the bestsellers and see how they do what they do - but I can also tell you it took me about two dozen attempts at copying what sells, before I finally found what worked for me. I tried NA, tried Billionaire BDSM, tried various erotica sub-genres, but despite my following the formulas perfectly, I wrote a buttload of books that didn't take off. And then finally I found my niche that worked for me.

My advice is to study not just what sells, but study bestsellers that you enjoy reading. On any bestseller list, there are going to be people whose writing you think is godawful, and people whose writing you find entertaining. I used to focus on writers who I thought were terrible but who sell really well. Obviously, I couldn't understand their appeal.

When I switched to a subgenre that I personally read and enjoy, that's when my writing took off.


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## John Ellsworth (Jun 1, 2014)

Kit Tunstall said:


> I'm not a bestseller, but I think the formula is something like sweet/naive young woman (probably a virgin, but maybe just limited experience) meets a damaged, sexy, and rich man. He might be a MMA fighter, a biker, or a billionaire. Hell, maybe he's all three. He's been a man-whore, and she knows of his reputation, but she can't resist the Magic Pen(is). They get it on and both discover deeper feelings. Something silly comes along to tear them apart--misunderstanding, a bad person from the past, a wicked case of butt rash--and while they're separated, they both realize they can't live without the other. Most importantly, the Hero realized the heroine is the ONE who can magically cure all his psychological problems. They get back together, bone some more, and live HEA. At least until the author decides to cash in on success and write a sequel that rips them apart again. That butt rash can be hard to get rid of, you know. ;-)
> 
> (And then there is the love triangle variation, where two men vie for her affections. Typically, the one she doesn't pick gets to have his own story next. And don't forget the endless annoying variations of rewriting the same book in different characters' POV. Pretty soon, the butler's niece's newspaper boy will be telling his version of the story.)
> 
> I'm being a bit snarky, but this truly seems to be the pattern for a lot of the bestselling NA romances/eroms.


Love this!


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

I learned this the hard way, Megan. I'd pick bestsellers that I hated, but that seemed to be simple to emulate because they were so freaking bad. Then I'd try to emulate them. Seriously, if they'd sold well for me, I would have kept writing them, but they didn't sell well.

I mean, you look at romance, you've got chick lit, paranormal romance, and under that you've got countless subcategories of paranormal, there's romantic thrillers, there's Christian inspirational fiction which also has numerous subcategories, Highlander romance, Regency romance, there's billionaire bdsm, there's contemporary romance, there's NA, there's multicultural...chances are good that if you're a romance reader you're going to love some of those categories and actively dislike others.  And even then, there are going to be people in your favorite subgenre who sell well, but whose writing you can't stand. 

It just makes sense that you will do a better job copying/emulating those who you enjoy reading.  (When I say copying, I mean the general theme - obviously, not plagiarizing.)


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## Mr. Sparkle (Oct 8, 2014)

Kitty French said:


> That just about sums it up for me too.
> 
> What especially resonates in Rosalind's advice is to give every aspect of your book your best, rather than to just concentrate your efforts on hitting genre tropes to the exclusion of all the other important stuff.
> Unless of course your only objective is to try to make fast money, and you genuinely don't care about the quality of your work, building a career, or respecting your readers.


On the other hand, many of the most successful writers in the business approach making the customers happy as part of the strategy of making money quickly. Some have quality control issues as a result and have outsourced their writing entirely (James Patterson, for example). I disagree that authors should aim so that profit (fast or not) and reader satisfaction are mutually exclusive. Just like writing fast doesn't mean writing poorly, neither does selling quickly necessarily denote selling poorly. It depends entirely on the person.

It's all well and good to encourage writers in popular genres to focus less on marketing and tactics, but let's face it: the easiest way to keep on writing full-time is to make money from your writing in the first place. For people who would LIKE to write horror or literary fiction, writing formulaic thrillers or romance to supplement your income can look like a darn good idea! YMMV.

For me, I like cross-genre writing. Because I do care lot about the reader experience: getting the characterization, historical facts, plotting, and social justice issues right -- my creative drive often grinds to a halt. So I'm taking a break and writing erotica instead. I've written more in the past week than I have on my regular work in the past 3 months!  My work in one genre is helping me break through my inner critic in other ones.

And if I could stomach writing MMA fighters and the heroines who love them, I would write those too. Not as a full-time genre, but I don't have a fall-back plan. I've been out of work for ten years between school and medical issues, and this is what I'm qualified and able to do.

I think the number of bestselling authors who are actually writing in _a particular genre or sub-genre_ mainly for the money are vastly under-counted, for obvious reasons.

So imho, without snark, I think posts that can give people actionable info on producing hits, whether they're about formulas, marketing plans, or pricing strategies, are all incredibly useful.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Deblombardi said:


> It depends on the genre, of course. I can only tell you what the formula is for billionaire erotica/romance. It's a broke heroine who needs a lot of money for something (usually a student loan, could be medical bills or anything like that), an aloof, jerky billionaire who offers the heroine the money she needs in exchange for having sex with him or some other proposition (in the billionaire erotica/romance world, this is not considered prostitution, at least not in the heroine's mind), and dark secrets being hidden by the aloof billionaire. It helps if the heroine has also experienced a past tragedy, but not necessary. The billionaire must somehow "claim" the woman, either because the electricity is just so hot or because he literally falsely imprisons her against her will. There also should be some degree of mental issues on the part of one or both.


Yeah, go tell that to the hundreds of writers who are writing just that and are still not making any money.

Tell us AFTER you have a bestseller how easy it is, mmmmkay?


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## dirtiestdevil (Aug 20, 2014)

The majority of you don't understand what a best-seller is. I've only seen one person address it so far.

It is a book that does just that -- SELL BEST! It moves more units than X amount of other books do. Now, it's a best-seller. This says nothing of the quality, just the sales.

McDonalds sells A LOT of burgers -- but how many of those are memorable meals you'll be talking about for years to come? 

They're quick, easy, and taste alright -- you like that feeling of getting full and moving on.

Those are the pot-boiler variety best-sellers. Formulaic, forgettable, and replaceable -- but PROFITABLE!

Then, you have fine dining at that restaurant you go to once every year for your special anniversary... You know it will be EXQUISITE! But again, it's not something you want to eat at every day, or even weekly. It's special. Memorable. Rare.

But come monday, you'll be right back at the mcdonalds drive through ordering just as you always have. McD's doesn't have to blow your mind. They just need to make a decent burger that holds you over until next time.


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## Sylvia R. Frost (Jan 8, 2014)

Sorry. I don't care how "bad" a book is, if it is selling there is something to be learned from it. There are many GREAT writers I know selling less than me, and they are  many more great writers I know selling waaaaay more. Quality of writing and sales have a only a slight correlation. That doesn't mean that quality of writing isn't something to aspire to, and that doesn't mean that high sales isn't something to aspire to either. 

I aspire to both. So I picked a popular, trendy genre. (Not sorry about that.) And then I tried to write the d*mn best book I could. And I'm proud of my work. I think I created something that fits within tropes. But I still managed to put my own unique spin on it.  I think an author should aspire to both writing the best story they can, having the highest production values (within budget), and then ALSO  to selling the most, but they shouldn't confuse the two goals. They are very much separate. 

And, this is important to remember, just because a book uses a trope you don't like doesn't mean it sucks. Da Vinci Code? Not for me. But I can recognize great hook-y writing when I read it. That's not to say that there aren't a plethora of bad billionaire or shifter romances out there -- but I'd argue that's as much a function of the sheer quantity of billionaire romances. More billionaire romances=more bad billionaire romances. Also, I've read just as many "horrible" sci-fi/fantasy best sellers as I have "horrible" romances. There're just, again, less of them, because romance dominates the charts so thoroughly.


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## 72263 (Sep 10, 2013)

Eh, you can do the same thing the OP did to billionaire BDSM erotica to all the subgenres within Thrillers and Science Fiction as well if you wanted to. A lot of genre fiction is formulaic and niches have their tropes, nothing wrong with that.


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## Guest (Oct 15, 2014)

I bought into this. I'm still buying into it.

It is so convincing when someone comes along and tells you no one wants to read YOUR work, write OURS instead and reap the profits. This is all awesome until the first disappointment.

Maybe the first book doesn't sell out of the gate.

Maybe the second series doesn't make as much as the first.

At some point though, you're left staring at the idea that says - "Your great, magnificant story will not sell, Be a WRITER and write my baloney instead."

You don't make money on it? Well.. then you weren't a great writer. Or your cover / blurb wasn't good. Or it wasn't the right time.

The weatherman sure has a lot of excuses.

I think it's always best to remember, for every five thousand words you write in a genre you hate, that's five thousand words wasted. you can't get that back. You can't add them to your TRUE empire that you wish to grow. You know what I mean. Say you write some erotica and then you get a bunch of people emailing you telling you how good it was.

Then you write a serious story and you get emails from people who really enjoyed that.

Are you telling me, it doesn't matter who is praising you - only the quantity of those praising? It will affect you. Because unless it is BRIBING you by paying money in a HUGE way, it is stealing your time for nothing, and too much of that drives people insane. Especially when they have to deal with know-it-all folks who post the yum-yums and haven't even traveled this journey to begin with!


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

swolf said:


> If you think about it, the Billionaire trope is just another permutation of the Hero's Journey. The Heroine gets a call to adventure, sometimes initially refuses it, then crosses the threshold from her ordinary world into the new world - the billionaire's world - with the billionaire as her mentor. There, she goes through trials, makes some allies and enemies, and finally faces her special fear. From this conflict she is reborn, and she receives the treasure - her elixir.
> 
> Well, it could be written that way.


No, you're right. The FSOG/Twilight/Da Vinci Code runaway selling stuff is mostly that. They take the hero's journey and twist to a higher concept (a sparkling vampire! a billionaire asking Plain Jane to be his love slave! running around the Vatican and solving clues!)

And if the OP can't see that and why it works other than to mock it, I doubt we're going to see any bestselling titles in a signature line.


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## Onedayatatime (Oct 14, 2012)

SBright said:


> No, you're right. The FSOG/Twilight/Da Vinci Code runaway selling stuff is mostly that. They take the hero's journey and twist to a higher concept (a sparkling vampire! a billionaire asking Plain Jane to be his love slave! running around the Vatican and solving clues!)
> 
> And if the OP can't see that and why it works other than to mock it, I doubt we're going to see any bestselling titles in a signature line.


Obviously there are readers and authors that enjoy reading and writing those books. Writing a bestseller is not just about copying what you thinks sells even if you hate it. I think it very unlikely that the OP will be seeing any bestsellers stemming from this practice.

_Edited to conform with Forum Decorum. --Betsy_


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

This reminds me so much of a fellow writer who is my real-life acquaintance.

She broke into publishing writing tough-guy thrillers under a male pen name. The novels were witty and clever and they sold reasonably well so she was quite happy. Then one day another publisher approached her suggesting she tried combining thriller and romance. No tough guys, something lighter, maybe creepier. She wrote the first book in a couple of months and as she later told me, she was laughing as she was writing it as she basically just threw words at the computer screen trying to make it as soppy and 'romancy' as she could and not thinking much at all.

The flipping book hit bestseller lists. She wrote another one, etc, so now she is a household name with her "thriller romances". She still says they're ridiculously easy to write and take no work or effort at all. Yes, she still works hard writing more tough-guy thrillers under her male pen name but only for personal pleasure because that's what she really likes to write


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, 

argue the main points from the OP.  Or not.  But please stop the name calling--on all sides.  I'm going to be going through the thread with a fine tooth comb, though I've already removed and edited some posts.

Be nice.  Or at least civil. Or, if you can't, find another thread.  Often the best way to argue something you don't agree with is to ignore it.  Silence is a powerful tool.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Guys, here isn't a formula. Not for huge sales as an indie.

There are formulas for some genres (in romance, the main characters always have a reason to dislike each other at first, and by the end are happy with one another, and in love... that's a formula) and there's even a very basic formula for story that can be found in all novels regardless of genre. But there isn't one particular story you can write that will guarantee you tons of money.

You can analyze the plots of bestsellers all day long -- what you're not seeing is the hundreds of books with similar plots, and maybe better writing, that AREN'T selling as well as those on the bestseller list. If there were on type of plot and one set of characters that sold like gangbusters all the time, everybody would be writing it. And more to the point, everybody who was already writing those books would be selling huge... but they're not.

The truth is, and a lot of people won't like to hear this: LUCK plays a very big role. 

Yes, it's a fact that most people who "get lucky" work their butts off and have a very solid strategy. I'm of the opinion that working your butt off and constantly adjusting your strategy is going to dramatically increase your odds of getting lucky, but that luck still plays a big role in runaway indie successes.

None of us can know which of the hundreds of billionaire romances will strike the right chord with the right book blogger or heavy Twitter user or YouTube reviewer, whose influence will be enough to spark a buying spree among her followers. That will lead to a sustained spike in sales, which will lead to a climb up the ranks, which will lead to better visibility, which will lead to more sales, which will lead to the perception that this book is among the best, which will cause more readers to buy that book than to buy any of the hundreds of others that are similar to it.

Note I've said all this about INDIE bestsellers, as I know that publishers often arrange expensive campaigns to move books onto bestseller lists and start that feedback loop of readers seeing a book ranked high -> readers choosing that book over all similar books because it's highly ranked -> readers seeing a book ranked high -> readers choosing that book. Indies don't usually have the budget to manage such a feat, so we have to rely on organic -- and UNPREDICTABLE -- means of triggering that kind of loop.

The key factor here -- the source of the luck that will get you there -- is the reader. This is why it's not wise to disparage readers. If an indie book with a banal plot or simplistic writing becomes popular among readers, it's not because readers are dumb. It's because that book has struck a chord with the right readers -- those with vast social reach. 

Sylvia is absolutely right when she says that there's something to learn from these books. I'd encourage you to read them not to find a "formula" of a sure-fire plot, but to determine what about the book's atmosphere or theme resonates so strongly with its audience. In my observation, when these runaway hits happen it's because they just happen to line up with a burgeoning "feeling" among the zeitgeist.

The DaVinci Code was a big hit because it dared to challenge religious ideas. (It's no coincidence that it became a big hit just before all the New Atheism books emerged, and were also big hits.) Fifty Shades was a big hit because it focuses on a woman claiming her "scary" sexuality at a time when Western society is lashing back against slut-shaming and fighting harder than ever before for women's sexual agency. Of course, both of these books also had big promo pushes from their publishers, but they work as examples since most of us have either read them or know what they're about. The DaVinci Code wasn't a big hit because it was a thriller in which the hero tried to solve an encrypted riddle. Fifty Shades wasn't a hit because of billionaires and virgins. Each book struck a chord with society at large. Each book spoke directly to a strong feeling its readers already had.

If you want to try to manufacture a guaranteed bestseller for yourself, I have three pieces of advice:
1) Stop analyzing plots. Ultimately the specifics of a plot don't matter because all books are the same at their core. The plot dressings are just set pieces for the same old story to play out: a character going from messed up to whole via a struggle.
2) Start respecting readers more. As an indie, it's going to be some reader with great social influence -- maybe on Goodreads, maybe on Facebook, maybe on Tumblr -- who trips the feedback loop that gets you onto a bestseller list.
3) Start analyzing the world around you. Look for rumblings and stirrings. Write to stimulate those feelings which are already quietly brewing in the world.

Good luck with #3, as you're just as likely to be wrong about what the next big social movement will be as you're likely to be right about it. But it's more likely to land you on the bestseller list than writing another billionaire/virgin romance that you don't care about anyway.

This is why I've always thought it's wiser to write what you enjoy -- what you'd want to write anyway, whether or not it lands you on the bestseller lists. Yes, you need to make some concessions if you're going to do this for a living. I want to earn more money, so I'm splitting my attentions between what I wish I could write ALL the time and romance. But I LIKE writing romance -- it's fun, and I respect the readers. I don't think they're dumb for enjoying a fun book. I don't think they're not capable of reading something more challenging or complex or thematic. I know that they read romance to unwind, not to have their minds blown. I'd never insult them for their reading choices. That's a terrible way to try to make millions, by thinking poorly of the very readers whom you hope will become your bread and butter. 

So yes, anybody CAN write a bestseller, but ultimately you have little control over the factor that makes indie books into bestsellers: readers. You can do everything right to make your book as appealing to them as possible, and you should. But you can't predict or control whether the right reader picks up YOUR book and then raves about it to all her friends.


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

ElHawk said:


> The truth is, and a lot of people won't like to hear this: LUCK plays a very big role.


Lol I've said this twice now! I know it's not something people like to hear, but yes. Writing isn't like any other business. You can do everything right, but there are so many factors that play into it, you honestly can't predict what will succeed and what won't. It's up to the readers


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

kjbryen said:


> Lol I've said this twice now! I know it's not something people like to hear, but yes. Writing isn't like any other business. You can do everything right, but there are so many factors that play into it, you honestly can't predict what will succeed and what won't. It's up to the readers


Yep.

I DO very much believe that luck does tend to happen to those who work hard and smart. But it's still luck -- it's still unpredictable fortune. You merely increase your odds of hitting a vein of good luck by working as hard and as smart as you can.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

kjbryen said:


> Lol I've said this twice now! I know it's not something people like to hear, but yes. Writing isn't like any other business. You can do everything right, but there are so many factors that play into it, you honestly can't predict what will succeed and what won't. It's up to the readers


I would argue that unknown factors play into most other businesses. Betamax would have been great if someone else hadn't invented VHS... 

Betsy


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## kjbryen (Jul 3, 2014)

ElHawk said:


> Yep.
> 
> I DO very much believe that luck does tend to happen to those who work hard and smart. But it's still luck -- it's still unpredictable fortune. You merely increase your odds of hitting a vein of good luck by working as hard and as smart as you can.


Exactly. And different methods work, depending on the person. The best you can do is take the advice that works for you, and apply it the best you can.



Betsy the Quilter said:


> I would argue that unknown factors play into most other businesses. Betamax would have been great if someone else hadn't invented VHS...
> 
> Betsy


Ha yeah I suppose that's true. I guess I've always considered the arts to be a little different than most businesses though, because it's just so dang hard to break into it!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Everything ELHawk said--except that my people often don't start out disliking each other. You don't even have to do that. You just have to write a struggle, a story that resonates, in whatever genre. 

I don't know about anybody else, but I've been lousy at picking which of my books will do best. I've written ones where I thought, "heh-heh, I finally did it right!" (Usually, yep, when I make the hero and heroine avoid each other or something at the start, or even make the heroine dislike the hero.) Nope. Wrong. 

I just put one up for pre-order yesterday that I wrote totally for myself, and a few readers who asked for it. I thought no way would it sell. For one thing, it does everything wrong. Everything. For the other, I thought only a small subset of readers would be interested. I was shocked that my beta readers LOVED it, and it's done my best ever in first half-day of pre-order. Not a bestseller, but #135 in the store last night. It might just sell great.

I write what works for me. For the tender bits to raise chills on my arms, the scary bits to raise my heart rate, the funny bits to make me laugh, the sexy bits to turn me on. I'm the only barometer I have. If it works for me, if it entertains me, that's the only weather vane I've got. It works well. But I write romance because I love it. I work quite hard, but I didn't start out to make money. I started out to write a fun story. The more I can keep the focus there, ironically, the better I'm able to write the kinds of stories that sell for me. 

Life is short. I do what I love.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

True, they don't have to dislike each other. They just have to have a good reason for NOT being together, at first.

It's actually a really fun genre to write in, because each new book is like a puzzle. How will you make these characters and this circumstance fit within the expected tropes? It's an enjoyable challenge.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

SBright said:


> No, you're right. The FSOG/Twilight/Da Vinci Code runaway selling stuff is mostly that. They take the hero's journey and twist to a higher concept (a sparkling vampire! a billionaire asking Plain Jane to be his love slave! running around the Vatican and solving clues!)
> 
> And if the OP can't see that and why it works other than to mock it, I doubt we're going to see any bestselling titles in a signature line.


I wasn't mocking it. I was sincerely trying to help. The book that I referenced - I read it and its sequel in one day. I found it intriguing. Extremely poorly written, not edited at all, there were a whole bunch of questions that had periods and statements that had question marks (a pet peeve), and the heroine continued to be TSTL and the hero continued to be nothing but a jerk - but I was intrigued enough to finish it AND pre-order the next book. So, there you go.

I understand the hero's journey and all of that. And the concept of archetypes. I'm not stupid. I'm simply saying that there is a formula to bestsellers, like it or not, and if a writer wants to have a BETTER chance of making money in this, the writer should know the formula. That's all I'm saying.

And I leave you with this. There was a little movie in 1990 called "Pretty Woman" that came out of nowhere and made HUGE money. Fits my formula exactly, but it wasn't necessarily the hero's journey so much as it was a modern-day Cinderella. Which is what these billionaire books are as well - the wish fulfillment of the idea that any one of us can be swept away. Edward in that movie was even the complicated, "can't fall in love" guy who I would argue is the basis for the modern-day billionaires in these novels. Vivian, the lowly hooker with the smart mouth, tames him, and every one of us sighed when she did.

Also, readers like to see the underdog make good, which is why it's so important to make the heroine vulnerable in some way (past tragedy, insecurities, plain jane, broke). There are lot of underlying reasons why these books make it, but it really would do writers well to read the bestsellers to try to understand how to put these concepts in action.


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## AnyaWrites (May 16, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> I just put one up for pre-order yesterday that I wrote totally for myself, and a few readers who asked for it. I thought no way would it sell. For one thing, it does everything wrong. Everything. For the other, I thought only a small subset of readers would be interested. I was shocked that my beta readers LOVED it, and it's done my best ever in first half-day of pre-order. Not a bestseller, but #135 in the store last night. It might just sell great.
> 
> I write what works for me. For the tender bits to raise chills on my arms, the scary bits to raise my heart rate, the funny bits to make me laugh, the sexy bits to turn me on. I'm the only barometer I have. If it works for me, if it entertains me, that's the only weather vane I've got. It works well. But I write romance because I love it. I work quite hard, but I didn't start out to make money. I started out to write a fun story. The more I can keep the focus there, ironically, the better I'm able to write the kinds of stories that sell for me.
> 
> Life is short. I do what I love.


Wow! Way to go! #135 is great. I love that you are writing what you love, it makes those long hours so much easier. It also reflects in your writing since your stories are so fun and entertaining.


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## Peter Spenser (Jan 26, 2012)

LolaWilder said:


> Okay, how do I find the bestsellers on Amazon?


Go here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

AnyaWrites said:


> Wow! Way to go! #135 is great. I love that you are writing what you love, it makes those long hours so much easier. It also reflects in your writing since your stories are so fun and entertaining.


Well, thank you!

I just got off track for a week or so with the WIP, getting really anxious about it. I was really worried about what I "should" do. It's only my third rom suspense, and it's my first book for a publisher. No pressure! I realized that I had got off track in the way I ALWAYS get off track--by thinking about the plot too much, the "rules" for the genre, instead of focusing on my characters and being true to them. I realized where the book needed to go, that it didn't need all the extra "drama" I was injecting, that I was killing the mood, and I think I'm all good now. At 75K--Only a week to go!

This is true--When I wrote "Just Not Mine," I was going through HORRIBLE anxiety. I mean, sleepless nights every night. I was living on the beach in New Zealand, and just suffering. I woke up at 2 in the morning and realized that the big dramatic finish I had thought I needed, because that's "how it's done," was all wrong for the book. That day, I wrote the climactic scene of the book, a scene I had never planned--not even hero & heroine, the heroine & her mother, just having a talk at the kitchen table--in my raincoat, standing up at the kitchen counter, "on my way" to the pub. Then I went to the pub and wrote the whole rest of the book. BAM.

And you know what? That's the scene that's quoted. That's the scene that's mentioned. The low-key, all-wrong scene of the heroine's mum giving her the straight talk about what real love and real life are--and aren't. That's what my readers come for--the story that comes from my heart. The realistic thing. The thing I wanted to write? All nice and dramatic, all typical--and all wrong.

I mean, everyone's MMV. And I'm not saying I don't write plenty of genre tropes. But I've sold best when I've been in love with my characters and have told their story, however un-dramatic that may seem to some readers, the ones who think I'm boring. I think we each have a unique voice, a unique perspective or spin to offer. That's the special thing that is YOU, that readers will come back to read.

IMHO of course.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Folks,
> 
> argue the main points from the OP. Or not. But please stop the name calling--on all sides. I'm going to be going through the thread with a fine tooth comb, though I've already removed and edited some posts.
> 
> ...


I was just about to call you magnificent, but since there's no name-calling allowed...

No matter how "poorly written" you think some bestseller is, pointing it out comes off as sour grapes. The second I hear an author say that, I think they have an overblown opinion of their own writing. It screams of desperation, frustration, and envy. I sit there and assume the writer who says it probably can't spot the flaws in their own writing that prevent them from selling like the best seller. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the OP's writing (I wouldn't know, I haven't read any of it). It's just the first thing that jumps to mind for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. So, while this may be a fairly safe forum to make such claims, that some best seller's writing isn't all that good, I'd think twice before making such claims. It rarely puts you in a good light, fair or not.


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## Guest (Oct 15, 2014)

For those of you looking for the secret bestseller formula, Kurt Vonnegut gave it out a couple of decades ago.


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

C.Saffron said:


> Agree.
> 
> You also have to write a short prequel novella, another novella that takes place a year or two later (maybe there's a baby or wedding involved) and then continue the series by writing about the main characters brother that we met briefly in book 1.
> 
> A lot of the bestsellers in erotica romance seem to work with book bloggers, instead of paying for expensive advertising.


I was going to not comment but now I must.

A lot of bestsellers (erotica or not, what NA has become is some of that or even slides right into soft porn these days and I can say because I've read far too much of it) are IN BED with the top book bloggers in the sense that they work hand-in-hand together. And sometimes they even pay the bloggers to promote their books. And all the time the big-time bloggers gets paid by Amazon with their associates tag leading straight to the book purchase. So now? Those bloggers tend to gravitate toward promoting an author's work that provides them with serious cash and dissing any new author or unknown author wanting to be promoted. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how they soar up the bestseller lists time and time again. Add the notion of street teams which have also become a big business along with virtual or real personal assistants and you're in business. No guidelines, no social mores needed, and no conflict of interest consideration given.

Formulaic writing is a given.


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

Katherine Owen said:


> I was going to not comment but now I must.
> 
> A lot of bestsellers (erotica or not, what NA has become is some of that or even slides right into soft porn these days and I can say because I've read far too much of it) are IN BED with the top book bloggers in the sense that they work hand-in-hand together. And sometimes they even pay the bloggers to promote their books. And all the time the big-time bloggers gets paid by Amazon with their associates tag leading straight to the book purchase. So now? Those bloggers tend to gravitate toward promoting an author's work that provides them with serious cash and dissing any new author or unknown author wanting to be promoted. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how they soar up the bestseller lists time and time again. Add the notion of street teams which have also become a big business along with virtual or real personal assistants and you're in business. No guidelines, no social mores needed, and no conflict of interest consideration given.
> 
> Formulaic writing is a given.


That's not entirely true. There is a fair amount of high school behavior between NA/romance authors and bloggers, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be, especially for new authors and bloggers. You have to be willing to engage and network with bloggers just like readers.

And there's some rumblings in the air that bloggers aren't as effective in promotion anymore, but it's more of a wait and see thing.


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

SBright said:


> That's not entirely true. There is a fair amount of high school behavior between NA/romance authors and bloggers, but it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be, especially for new authors and bloggers. You have to be willing to engage and network with bloggers just like readers.
> 
> And there's some rumblings in the air that bloggers aren't as effective in promotion anymore, but it's more of a wait and see thing.


I'm not making a blanket statement about all bloggers but the biggest book bloggers these days do this and I have it confirmed in writing by a good source.

I've done multiple blog tours with some very upstanding blogs who read the books and do right with the promotion. However, that is very unlikely to lead to direct sales. But without a doubt some of the big book bloggers operate in the way I described and I've literally watched in action. The winning combo is big book blog promotion and street teams hand-in-hand. It's pretty easy to track via FB and watching the promos that go on.

edited to catch up with Kboards refresh 4x.


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## bubbagump22 (Aug 12, 2014)

"Anyone can be a bestseller" is an old argument, and it may be true, but it is insanely difficult to do.  You are far more likely to "get lucky" and become a bestseller by organically connecting with an audience.

You have to be smart, study the market, study the books, form a thesis of what will sell, and follow through with conviction FOR MONTHS/YEARS.  Very few people have this in them.  It's hard enough to write what you actually want to write.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> I was just about to call you magnificent, but since there's no name-calling allowed...
> 
> No matter how "poorly written" you think some bestseller is, pointing it out comes off as sour grapes. The second I hear an author say that, I think they have an overblown opinion of their own writing. It screams of desperation, frustration, and envy. I sit there and assume the writer who says it probably can't spot the flaws in their own writing that prevent them from selling like the best seller. That's not to say there's anything wrong with the OP's writing (I wouldn't know, I haven't read any of it). It's just the first thing that jumps to mind for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. So, while this may be a fairly safe forum to make such claims, that some best seller's writing isn't all that good, I'd think twice before making such claims. It rarely puts you in a good light, fair or not.


Yeah, that's right. I'm envious of anybody who sells better than me.  No, really, I call a spade a spade. Most of us are thinking the same, I'm just saying it.

And I'll gladly point out books which are well-written, even if they're at the top of the charts. I'm reading one right now - the writing so far is excellent, and this book is also in the top 100. So, no, it's not envy, because if it was envy, I'd be dogging all bestselling books, wouldn't I?


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2014)

EelKat said:


> LOL! was used as far back as the 1940s...it was a very common way for soldiers to sign postcards "Lots of Love From ___"
> 
> My grandmother wrote THOUSANDS of postcards to my grandfather during the war, he saved them all and brought them all back with him. And he answered every one of them. They were sending 2 or 3 post cards a day to each other. I have them all now. Because postcards are very small, they often used anagrams for words and phrases...reading their postcard letters is like reading a secret code sometimes.
> 
> ...


Interesting. I was giggling at the clueless older relatives, but it turns out our generation (and younger) are the clueless ones.


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## SabrinaLacey (Dec 31, 2013)

Dmotley said:


> Ad for bestselling erotica titles. I bought many, read many, analysed some of them. I made some notes about how drama develops in these stories. Here is it:
> 
> Drama development:
> 
> ...


This made me snort. Funny thread. Write what you love, I say. And study success, too. But damn if I will ever write trite dialogue on purpose. I just can't. I can't, I tell you. I can't. (sob)


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Katherine Owen said:


> Add the notion of street teams which have also become a big business along with virtual or real personal assistants and you're in business. No guidelines, no social mores needed, and no conflict of interest consideration given.


I'm not sure why virtual assistants got tarred with the same brush here? I know a lot of authors who use VAs, but your post kind of made it sound like you think that's unethical?


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

I wouldn't call it a 100% fool-proof formula, but it's a good one nonetheless. I used the formula myself for my thriller shorts. Guess what? It works. I already had a good idea of the bestsellers since I read about a book a week, sometimes two to three 300+ page plus novels if I've got a few days off or if it's the holiday period. 

Of course, after reading a few spy thrillers in a row, I catch myself strafing around the house and frightening the dog when I sneak up behind her unknowingly.


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## wtvr (Jun 18, 2014)

AA2014 said:


> Of course, after reading a few spy thrillers in a row, I catch myself strafing around the house...


LOL!!


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## KOwrites (May 23, 2011)

Anne Victory said:


> I'm not sure why virtual assistants got tarred with the same brush here? I know a lot of authors who use VAs, but your post kind of made it sound like you think that's unethical?


I believe you're taking it out of context. I have no problem with a virtual assistant to help out an author with some tasks. Do I think they should be running an author's FB fan page and assigning out tasks to street teams where the author checks in only every once in a while? No. I don't.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Katherine Owen said:


> I believe you're taking it out of context. I have no problem with a virtual assistant to help out an author with some tasks. Do I think they should be running an author's FB fan page and assigning out tasks to street teams where the author checks in only every once in a while? No. I don't.


Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

LisaGloria said:


> LOL!!


Lots of Love, too, Lisa! 

But really, it's the truth. Back in the summer of 2010, I read the entire Ian Fleming series. To say that I wasn't humming the tune of the Bond theme for weeks would be a lie. Thankfully, I don't act as I'm an airplane in public after reading aviation fiction. I'm sure people would think I was insane then.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Katherine Owen said:


> I believe you're taking it out of context. I have no problem with a virtual assistant to help out an author with some tasks. Do I think they should be running an author's FB fan page and assigning out tasks to street teams where the author checks in only every once in a while? No. I don't.


Why not? You're a publishing BUSINESS. No business has one person doing all tasks. Authors need to separate being an author from being a publisher. They are two entirely different tasks. My husband is my assistant and runs my street team. They love him. I see no problem, ethical or otherwise with the arrangement. If the people on my street team are happy, why is that a problem?


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Robert Brumm said:


> Am I the only one who doesn't know what TSTL means?


No.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Were any of the classics 'bestsellers' when first published .

A reviewer described one of my _Leon Chameleon PI_ books as 'an instant classic'. I wonder how long it will be (if ever ) before that comes true? I'd prefer it if the children reading the books today pass them on to their children than the stories become 'bestsellers' and then disappear like Ninja Turtles .


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## StraightNoChaser (Dec 29, 2013)

TSTL = To Stupid To Live.


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## deedawning (Aug 31, 2013)

Deblombardi said:


> It depends on the genre, of course. I can only tell you what the formula is for billionaire erotica/romance. It's a broke heroine who needs a lot of money for something (usually a student loan, could be medical bills or anything like that), an aloof, jerky billionaire who offers the heroine the money she needs in exchange for having sex with him or some other proposition (in the billionaire erotica/romance world, this is not considered prostitution, at least not in the heroine's mind), and dark secrets being hidden by the aloof billionaire. It helps if the heroine has also experienced a past tragedy, but not necessary. The billionaire must somehow "claim" the woman, either because the electricity is just so hot or because he literally falsely imprisons her against her will. There also should be some degree of mental issues on the part of one or both.
> 
> Voila! Those are the "rules." Add your own flair, and you're on your way!!!!!


Got a book just like that and it hasn't sold beans, A Kept Woman. What do I do to get it noticed?


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2014)

Dee, you could make it into a life-size placard and wear the cover as you run naked through the streets. That's a strategy I haven't tried. The more traditional approaches, like advertising, seem hit-or-miss. *sigh*


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Jana DeLeon said:


> Why not? You're a publishing BUSINESS. No business has one person doing all tasks. Authors need to separate being an author from being a publisher. They are two entirely different tasks. My husband is my assistant and runs my street team. They love him. I see no problem, ethical or otherwise with the arrangement. If the people on my street team are happy, why is that a problem?


I'm curious about this, too. Why would running a FB fan page be a problem? I would think that would be up pretty high on the list of tasks for any assistant.


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

I'd rather an author I liked be busy writing another book and not having to divide their time on FB and the other million things they have to do. *shrug* But that may be because I want to read a book of theirs and not become buddies on the FB. *antisocial at heart*


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## deedawning (Aug 31, 2013)

I wrote a blog about eighteen months ago about the billionaire phenom. It really is a joke. At the time I wrote the blog there were  (I'm going from memory) less than a hundred billionaires world wide. Something like a quarter of them were women. half of the rest were over 65 about a third of what was left were foreigners. Of the Americans half were married. That left something like a dozen. Throw in a gay or two and we were down under ten. Of those half were butt ugly or a hundred pounds overweight. I'm sure there are more now but still my guess there are a couple thousand billionaire books for each available billionaire.


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## StraightNoChaser (Dec 29, 2013)

deedawning said:


> Got a book just like that and it hasn't sold beans, A Kept Woman. What do I do to get it noticed?
> 
> I wrote a blog about eighteen years ago about the billionaire phenom. It really is a joke. At the time I wrote the blog there were (I'm going from memory) less than a hundred billionaires world wide. Something like a quarter of them were women. half of the rest were over 65 about a third of what was left were foreigners. Of the Americans half were married. That left something like a dozen. Throw in a gay or two and we were down under ten. Of those half were butt ugly or a hundred pounds overweight. I'm sure there are more now but still my guess there are a couple thousand billionaire books for each available billionaire.


There isn't a single confirmed werewolf or vampire on the entire planet. But guess what, those books sell like hotcakes. It's called fantasy.

A Kept Woman. You need to kill this title with fire. That is not the fantasy and it makes me think of some guy's girlfriend his wife doesn't know about. The billionaire's money is a bonus and a convenient plot device for fun scenes involving shopping trips and private islands. It's not really the turn on, it's a sign of a driven man that has skill and perseverance.

I haven't read a lot of the copy cats, but when this first started, all these books had the big "I am not your whore/I never said you were, I just like spoiling you" argument. Ana was running her own publishing company at the end of FSOG. She didn't become his toy.

Readers don't want a gold digger. The want a sympathetic heroine that actually deserves the hero, and would want him without his cash. The private jet is gravy.


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## deedawning (Aug 31, 2013)

StraightNoChaser said:


> There isn't a single confirmed werewolf or vampire on the entire planet. But guess what, those books sell like hotcakes. It's called fantasy.
> 
> A Kept Woman. You need to kill this title with fire. That is not the fantasy and it makes me think of some guy's girlfriend his wife doesn't know about. The billionaire's money is a bonus and a convenient plot device for fun scenes involving shopping trips and private islands. It's not really the turn on, it's a sign of a driven man that has skill and perseverance.
> 
> ...


The book was written pre-billionaire craze. Can something else be put in the title besides Billionaire? Any ideas? BTW that was months not years OOPS


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

deedawning said:


> BTW that was months not years OOPS


Yeah, I was wondering what was going on with billionaires around eighteen years ago. The closest I could come up with was the movie Indecent Proposal. But back then he was only a millionaire.


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## StraightNoChaser (Dec 29, 2013)

deedawning said:


> The book was written pre-billionaire craze. Can something else be put in the title besides Billionaire? Any ideas? BTW that was months not years OOPS


Nothing jumps to mind. Depending on the length, heat level, and amount of cliches, the word billionaire might actually work. I've seen some with decent ranks. I never could stoop that low either, though


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Micki23 said:


> LOL I kinda wondered. I didn't know erotica was around 18 years ago. I first stumbled onto it about 8 years ago when the only paying markets for erotic-type stories were the Playboy/girl, Trues and confession magazines, and a couple of online adult toy and clothing stores. IMHO, it was pretty tame then compared to nowadays.


Erotica has been around since ancient times, both in the East and in the West. Modern authors and readers aren't trailblazers when it comes to sex, not by any means ;-)


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

Anais Nin?


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

I'm not arguing that publishing is easier these days. Your initial statement, however, was only that you didn't realize erotica had been around longer than a decade and that it was "pretty tame" back then. I begged to differ. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Asians, etc. wrote plenty of erotica, and Google Fanny Hill, which was written and published in the 1700s (and even illustrated!) if you want to see tame ;-)


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Erotica has been around since antiquity and it has been a good moneymaker for authors for a long time now. A lot of world famous authors got their start writing erotica for sleaze magazines and paperbacks.

As for billionaires, Harlequin has had several lines dedicated to romances with titles like _The Billionaire's Virgin Secretary_ or _The Sheikh's Pregnant Mistress_ since the 1970s at least. These novels were published in what was then considered Harlequin's hotter lines. Though up to the 1990s, the billionaires were millionaires. Probably a sign of rampant inflation.


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

Rosalind James said:


> But there are a million billion quadrillion billionarire eromances out there that are not selling, that follow the formula. What's the explanation for that? Many of them well-written.
> 
> I mean, EVERYBODY is writing in this subgenre. And OK, a lot of the books on the bestseller list seem to be this (or claimed by a weretiger, which is same deal). Many of them well-written. But here's the thing--some are selling well and some aren't. Explanation? Got to be more to it than that.


I totally agree. Not every erotic billionaire story, well written or not, will achieve best-seller status. There are a lot of unknown variables no one can predict. A bit of luck, the stars aligning... who knows?


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## EthanRussellErway (Nov 17, 2011)

Totally makes sense.  I think there's something to be said for giving people what they want while at the same time writing what you want.  You can do both successfully- most of the time.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Were any of the classics 'bestsellers' when first published .


Most were.


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## Melly Mack (Jan 2, 2011)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyricon 1st century A.D.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O - 1950

And lots more in between! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_literature


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

I think the OP was reading my mind, but I'm older than s/he so here's what I did. I took out a couple of books by Ira Levin: The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby. The first I couldn't get into at all, but the second I found to be the proverbial page-turner. Rosemary's Baby has sold 4 million copies, and was adapted into a successful movie. 

Here is my honest opinion of the book. It's cleanly written. No particular style. Levin just wants to tell a story. There are numerous usages that the schoolmarm writer's workshop facilitators frown on. He uses the word "suddenly." Not supposed to do that, according to Elmore Leonard! He uses adverbs. He does a fair amount of telling, especially when he wants to speed up the action. None of this matters to me. I was amused by it, because I despise the schoolmarms and think they are a pox on creativity. Use the adverb and move on.

However, more substantively, I thought the main character, Rosemary herself, was underwritten. Levin could have spared a paragraph about how she and her husband met, and what job she worked at when she came to NYC. She was a blank canvas. But maybe that was part of the success of the book... I don't know.

My point is, Rosemary's Baby, at 53K words, cleanly but not brilliantly written, sold 4 million copies. I'm keeping Levin in mind while I'm working on my latest book. My watchword is: move it along. Just write. Don't let the schoolmarms get you down. Use adverbs, and if you want to use the word "suddenly," go for it.


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

travelinged said:


> This is quite like the advice in WRITING THE BLOCKBUSTER NOVEL by Albert Zuckerman. He is far less cynical and goes into specifics, but copying the ones who do it is at the core.


Thanks for the tip - but doesn't it help to have a Big Five publishing contract?


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

Deblombardi said:


> Okay, so this is going to sound like a rant, but it really isn't. This is a post to encourage everybody who is floundering, yet wants to make good money at this business. I mean this sincerely - read the top books in your genre. I repeat - read the top books in your genre. You might find that you are concentrating on the wrong things.
> 
> ...So, if you're struggling with money, do what I did. Read the top sellers. You just might realize that you don't need an editor, you don't have to be a decent writer, you can really slap on any old cover, your characters don't have to be likable, you don't need a good story. You just need elements that readers demand. If you can analyze what those elements are, you just might be on your way.
> 
> I mean this advice in all seriousness. I'm really not trying to be a troll or cynical. I honestly believe that, if you can drill down to what readers expect, you can make a go of this business.


These best-sellers - are they traditionally published?


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

This thread's from 2014. I think the new forum displays old threads prominently in some places. Just thought I'd reply since the people you quoted might not be around to.


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

Bite the Dusty said:


> This thread's from 2014. I think the new forum displays old threads prominently in some places. Just thought I'd reply since the people you quoted might not be around to.


Thanks, I didn't notice the date, lol.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

All that said, the OP said the book in question was in the top 100, and a lot of indies have books in the top 100 from time to time, so perhaps the OP's point still holds some merit. After all, a successful template is a successful template.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Deblombardi said:


> Okay, so this is going to sound like a rant, but it really isn't. This is a post to encourage everybody who is floundering, yet wants to make good money at this business. I mean this sincerely - read the top books in your genre. I repeat - read the top books in your genre. You might find that you are concentrating on the wrong things.
> 
> Now, this piece of advice isn't for all of you who write for yourselves and see imitating the bestsellers to be crass. If that's the case, godspeed. Probably a lot of you are making major money, anyhow, since you do this for love, and I admire you all. Again, this thread is strictly for those who see this whole thing as a way to make money.
> 
> ...


It is a case of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'. The top selling book in Time Travel Fiction is, in my opinion, too long and got very tedious and boring about two thirds of the way through. It was a good enough book until then, but nothing special. It has nothing to do with talent, everything to do with marketing.

What does TSTL mean?


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Doglover said:


> What does TSTL mean?


Too Stupid To Live


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

jb1111 said:


> All that said, the OP said the book in question was in the top 100, and a lot of indies have books in the top 100 from time to time, so perhaps the OP's point still holds some merit. After all, a successful template is a successful template.


"A lot"? I don't know about that. I'd love to see some facts & figures. I did check out one of the top sellers in dystopian and it said the publisher is "Ostiagard Press" which (a) I've never heard of and (b) I can't locate on the internet so maybe yeah, in that genre you can sell a lot as a self-publisher. I don't know how they do it. (Note: this particular book has some terrible reviews, as well. "Terrible writing" says one. Doesn't seem to have hurt sales, so the OP's theory is validated.)

I self-pub'd something months ago, advertised it, etc., and I've sold hardly anything. I went into this thinking that there would be a couple of hundred avid readers out there at 2:00 a.m. who would read anything. I was wrong.


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

Paranormal Kitty said:


> Too Stupid To Live


I didn't know that acronym before I read Rosemary's Baby - see my mini-review upthread. Rosemary is a prime example of TSTL. That may be infuriating to an intelligent reader but it seems that in these books, that is a feature, not a bug. The character gets to "grow" and you get to grow along with Miss Dummy.

My problem with this trope is that it's so artificial - if she's so dumb by her mid-20s, what capacity for growth does she have? 

But that's complicating things. Just write your best-seller and let the critics whine. And don't worry about the adverbs. No one cares about that except writer's workshop schoolmarms.


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

My biggest problem w/the OP is something that was mentioned but sorry I can't be bothered to locate it in this thread:

You can write it, but will people read it?

Give us the secret sauce to sales, not writing.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

D.E.M. said:


> "A lot"? I don't know about that. I'd love to see some facts & figures. I did check out one of the top sellers in dystopian and it said the publisher is "Ostiagard Press" which (a) I've never heard of and (b) I can't locate on the internet so maybe yeah, in that genre you can sell a lot as a self-publisher. I don't know how they do it. (Note: this particular book has some terrible reviews, as well. "Terrible writing" says one. Doesn't seem to have hurt sales, so the OP's theory is validated.)
> 
> I self-pub'd something months ago, advertised it, etc., and I've sold hardly anything. I went into this thinking that there would be a couple of hundred avid readers out there at 2:00 a.m. who would read anything. I was wrong.


I've seen indie authored books in the top listings of various genres, including romance and erotica. I think some of the sci-fi listings have indies in the top 100 or top 50 as well.

I haven't checked the Top 100 (the global listing, with all genres included), so your point is well taken in that case. I think trad publishing owns a lot of the biggest sellers, store wide.

Sorry to hear about your experience so far in indie-publishing. All I can say is press on. Sometimes it takes the third or fourth book to get readers to check out the rest of your library. I used to read periodically here on KB that indie publishing is a 'marathon, not a sprint', and I think they were right.


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## D.E.M. (Oct 10, 2019)

jb1111 said:


> I've seen indie authored books in the top listings of various genres, including romance and erotica. I think some of the sci-fi listings have indies in the top 100 or top 50 as well.
> ...
> 
> Sorry to hear about your experience so far in indie-publishing. All I can say is press on. Sometimes it takes the third or fourth book to get readers to check out the rest of your library. I used to read periodically here on KB that indie publishing is a 'marathon, not a sprint', and I think they were right.


I see this, too, and keep wondering what the secret sauce is. Did they have a BookBub promo? Did some influencer tout their book? Do they have a "platform"? Cos I can tell you that you don't just release a book on Amazon and it sells. Even in the genres where people aren't terribly picky - in fact, they want the tried and true. They want the billionaire sex bomb and the stupid heroine. 

Thanks for your kind words! I am pressing on indeed, working on a new project. And if this one doesn't work out, I'm going to focus on other endeavors. So I never became a best-selling author - I gave it a shot & it didn't work out.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Shit was way less competitive in 2014, but you still needed a commercial book. I made like... $200 on my first three books, published mid 2014 and early 2015.

I have no doubt some poorly written books sold well then, as they do now. But without seeing the books, it's hard to say if they are truly poorly written or just not the OP's genre/taste. Often, when we don't understand the appeal of a genre or niche, we see "not my taste" as poor quality.

IME, it's rare to see a truly horrible book selling a lot. Usually, it's more a case of mediocrity. There are some quality problems--inconsistent characters, messy theme, clunky prose--but the book is usually coherent, with as many good qualities as bad qualities. The good qualities may have a certain blandness to them, but blandess is often an asset when it comes to sales, because bland things don't turn off as many people as spiced things.

I don't recommend reading bad books, because I find it depressing. But if it motivates you, go ahead. I do like to remind myself "yeah, Crystal, your early books had some issues, maybe still do. Maybe it's a good thing readers aren't so picky... huh?" But I still get angry when I see mediocre books selling really well. It's just annoying. So better to never read and never have to get angry about it. Ofc YMMV.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

....................


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## travelinged (Apr 6, 2014)

One of the 


D.E.M. said:


> Thanks for the tip - but doesn't it help to have a Big Five publishing contract?


Sure. And even then only if you are a top author with the house who gets big budget promotions.
I've lost track of this ancient thread, but that issue has been forevermore. And the question, as I recall, wasn't about publishing and selling as much as writing a novel that fits that mold.


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## ASG (Dec 5, 2020)

Glad this thread was ressuscitated... made for a fascinating read (yes, I went through all 8 pages LOL).

To @D.E.M., yes, there is a recipe for sales too  Corvid pretty much hit the nail on the head. The only thing I'll add is that you should write in series and rapid release the titles. That will significantly increase your odds (assuming you got all the other stuff right that Corvid mentioned above).

Good luck!


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## Brian D. Anderson (Nov 4, 2019)

Deblombardi said:


> Okay, so this is going to sound like a rant, but it really isn't. This is a post to encourage everybody who is floundering, yet wants to make good money at this business. I mean this sincerely - read the top books in your genre. I repeat - read the top books in your genre. You might find that you are concentrating on the wrong things.
> 
> Now, this piece of advice isn't for all of you who write for yourselves and see imitating the bestsellers to be crass. If that's the case, godspeed. Probably a lot of you are making major money, anyhow, since you do this for love, and I admire you all. Again, this thread is strictly for those who see this whole thing as a way to make money.
> 
> ...


Try that in fantasy. Let's see how far your formula takes you.


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

Brian D. Anderson said:


> Try that in fantasy. Let's see how far your formula takes you.


What he says is a typical survivor's error. He forgets all the books that used similar tactics but never got anywhere. He only sees the few that made it and he thinks they know the secret to success.


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## ASG (Dec 5, 2020)

Lady Runa said:


> What he says is a typical survivor's error. He forgets all the books that used similar tactics but never got anywhere. He only sees the few that made it and he thinks they know the secret to success.


If you make a cake and get all the ingredients right... is it going to come out as expected every single time? Try changing the amounts or the time of cooking and see what happens.

The OP is not wrong, but what he gives are the ingredients. If you get any of the other details wrong, you'll fail--which, I would argue, is what happened with "all the books that used similar tactics but never got anywhere".


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

ASG said:


> If you make a cake and get all the ingredients right... is it going to come out as expected every single time? Try changing the amounts or the time of cooking and see what happens.
> 
> The OP is not wrong, but what he gives are the ingredients. If you get any of the other details wrong, you'll fail--which, I would argue, is what happened with "all the books that used similar tactics but never got anywhere".


I think that the OP is wrong this day and age as things have moved on. Quality of content is a must these days to get off base, but Just as important is to have deep pockets..

Just me being cynical, but since this thread started in 2014, so much has changed. The way I see it now, trad-publishers are working hand in glove with Amazon to pay them to get visibility in ways not available to self-published authors.

The introduction of Amazon's own imprints has soaked up quite a few of the bestseller slots.

To cap it off, Amazon have gone from a perceived champion of the self-published to soaking them for ad money, making it a pay to play system akin to vanity publishing, especially for those with zero experience.

Yes - you can still publish for nothing if you can self-edit, format, design your own cover etc. But to get visibility, unless you have a large mailing list and back catalogue of note, or extreme luck on your side, it's virtually impossible to break out above those prepared, or having the ability to pay to play.

I recently had 1 sale on a book and the overall rank it gave was 1.6 million. There are even more than that as there are millions without a rank. That is the ladder you have to climb if you are not to fall off and end up in the ether of the internet slushpile graveyard of books published on Amazon that will never see the light of day.


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## BuckarooBanzai (Sep 29, 2020)

Decon said:


> I think that the OP is wrong this day and age as things have moved on. Quality of content is a must these days to get off base, but Just as important is to have deep pockets..
> 
> Just me being cynical, but since this thread started in 2014, so much has changed. The way I see it now, trad-publishers are working hand in glove with Amazon to pay them to get visibility in ways not available to self-published authors.
> 
> ...


Completely agree.


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## Bear (Feb 21, 2019)

This post reflects certain observations about the modern world of book publishing (particularly online indie book publishing) that many other people have long made, and even about the world of modern commercial literature in general. There are many paradoxes (using the word in a loose sense) that lie within this world, though they are not actually hard to understand, and I will try to elaborate on some of them. I will also highlight a rather bizarre experience of mine that I had two years ago that helps to illustrate some of these curious factors that can make a break a book within the online marketplace (at least temporarily) that have little or nothing to do with its actual contents.

First, it is true that pretty much any literate person can write a ‘bestselling’ online book at any time and that there are factors that govern or influence such things that have little or nothing to do with a person’s writing skill or even imagination or intelligence. One only has to look at many of the books that are promoted around here or many of the ones in the bestseller lists to see this.

I have also noticed, incidentally, that similar paradoxes exist even within the literary magazine industry. For example, during my brief (and somewhat experimental) experience with it, I have been just as astonished at the stories of mine that received positive responses as I have been by the ones that were turned down without explanation. And note that I am a very experienced reader of fiction myself, having been an avid book reader since I was four. Furthermore, if you were to put side by side many of the stories that have been published by top literary magazines against many of the ones they have rejected, it can be sometimes hard to understand what exactly these people think they are doing or what they think they are looking for.

To give you just one concrete example, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine once published the novelette ‘The moving finger’ by Stephen King. This story, I regret to say, is one of the most ridiculous, rambling and meaningless stories that I have ever gone through the torture of wasting my time reading. And I say this as a fan of Stephen King (though mostly of his novels rather than shorts). If I were to show the vast majority of people the short story of mine which the same magazine once turned down, especially if placed next to that one, they would be utterly flabbergasted. It would make zero sense. I mean, there is no doubt at all that if anyone else who did not have a famous name had sent that same 13,500 word mess, ‘the moving finger’, to them, it would have been thrown right in the garbage. And I can say with almost the same degree of certainty that if the story I sent that was turned down had been sent to the same magazine with a well-recognized name on top of it, not only would it have been grabbed on the spot, they may very well have even nominated it for a literary prize. (And i say that despite the fact that I don’t even think those earlier stories I wrote reflected the peak of my story writing skills at all and that there are many things I could criticize about them.)

But the most relevant observation to make about this example in connection to the topic of this thread is that there are many people who actually think that ‘the moving finger’ is a good story! I have even come across people online who put it high up on their list of Stephen King shorts. Yet, there is no doubt at all in my mind that if a random person on the internet had given them that same story to review or critique, the same people would have torn it to shreds. They would have denounced it as ‘too slow’, ‘boring’, ‘rambling’, ‘pointless’, etc.. But because it was presented to them in a very different context – i.e., a published story written by a famous and highly regarded author – they tend to see it with utterly different lenses. Thus, ‘slow’ ‘pointless’ and ‘rambling’ suddenly becomes “It’s a great story!”

And I have seen many other remarkable examples over the years of people perceiving stories with drastically different lenses (positively or negatively) based on highly superficial and impertinent factors such as what name just happens to be on it.

So, coming back to the world of online indie book publishing, what I am trying to point out here is the fact that there are certain aspects of human nature (mostly having to do with factors like emotion, irrationality and group-mentality) that play a big role in the way these things play out and the fact that it doesn’t necessarily play out in the way one might idealistically expect. While there is obviously a strong objective dimension to literature in the sense that one can objectively say certain things about one work as opposed to another, the fact, still, is that literature (written fiction) appreciation is largely subjective. And this has certain consequences. In fact, literature is not unique in this: it is generally true in the world of art. There tends to be a much better correlation between quality of work and success when it comes the ‘non-creative’ or scientific fields where I normally work in. And this is because such fields are typically driven by hard results and, thus, the criteria for success are much more constrained by objective evaluation. Thus, there is less room for bias, emotion and irrationality. In other words, there is less room for bullshit.

At the same time, though, it is not true that quality doesn’t matter at all. I still believe that it generally does to some extent, even in the fickle world of modern indie publishing. Perhaps a good analogy to use would be to think of a written work of literature/fiction as almost like an actual physical person with a specific physical appearance. Now, you are no doubt aware of the fact that while (objective/universal) physical beauty often determines or influences who people generally find attractive or desirous, different people may also have different ‘types’ or tastes in terms of what kinds of looks turn them on that other people do not necessarily share. Then there is also this thing that they call ‘chemistry’ which is also a big factor in attraction, and perhaps even more crucial, and has little or nothing to do with the person’s appearance. And so also is this other thing that they call ‘status’ (social status) which also has nothing necessarily to do with the individual’s specific appearance but also plays a large role in attraction. So you have at least four factors shaping people’s perceptions as to who they consider attractive or not, and only two of them really and directly having to do with the person’s actual looks. And, come to think of it, someone may even find another person physically attractive for no reason other than the fact that he/she bears some resemblance to someone else that the person is fond of for whatever reason!

Thus, a person’s physical appearance can be popular with a lot of people despite it not actually being a ‘good looking’ appearance in the conventional sense. Notice, by the way, that the polar opposite is extremely unlikely. In other words, a person who _does_ meet the universal standards of good looks can’t not be found attractive by many people unless he/she is simply not seen. (Bear in mind, again, that the analogy is between the actual individual appearance of the hypothetical person and the contents of a specific book.)

Ironically, I had an experience right here on this website that was a classic and very remarkable demonstration of the fact that context matters a great deal when it comes to people’s behavior and perceptions with regards to books they come in contact with. This happened almost exactly two years ago. At the time, I had very little knowledge regarding online indie publishing (largely because I was never really interested in it) and so I had some naïve assumptions about it. I came to this site, frustrated and bewildered, seeking answers/suggestions as to why a short 20,000 word novella I had recently put on Amazon had sold no copies at all after a month. Although I had merely put it there simply because I had nothing better to do with it, I had nevertheless expected that, even with no marketing, it would still sell at least a few copies so long as some people see it. After all, millions of people browse Amazon books every day and some of them even search for books based purely on recent releases, one would think. And i simply could not imagine people seeing it and at least a few not buying it given the intriguing nature of the cover image, the blurb/premise and also the actual contents of the preview pages of the book. And, on top of all that, it was only 99 cents!

Despite making this point clear in my post, I still received mostly responses that contained nothing but red-herrings and non-sequiturs. Some respondents said the horror genre is not popular. Others said novellas are hard to sell. Others talked about the importance of marketing. And others lectured about the importance of fantastic and elegant covers. None of them seemed to grasp the crucial point that the _zero_ sales figure (in lieu of the above mentioned qualities) made absolutely no sense unless nobody actually saw the book. In other words, this was clearly a problem regarding the Amazon system and the way it is designed. My suspicions were confirmed months later when I happened to check the sales record of the book on other sites that I also published it on and I saw that it had indeed sold several copies in those sites despite my having done no promotion on them whatsoever. Thus it was clearly a problem specifically with Amazon.

In fact, what is so amazing and astonishing about this experience is the fact that it is _precisely_ the site (Amazon) in which I actually did some amount of (unintentional) promotion for the book that it sold no copies at all! I’m mainly referring to the fact that I was persuaded by the respondents on this forum to give them a link to the book itself on Amazon. This is something that I later regretted doing, not least because it led to more ridiculous lectures and non-sequiturs, especially regarding covers and blurbs. One person said the blurb was ‘intriguing’ and yet claimed it was a bad blurb without seeing the irony. Some even began to make patronizing comments about the writing, saying things like “displays talent but needs an editor” without actually saying what exactly it was that needed editing. Some even issued self-complimentary praises about how ‘generous’ they all were to ‘help’ a ‘rival author’.

Even though I made no arguments whatsoever throughout the entire thread and remained very humble all through, the fact is that all of this was both surprising and laughable. Of course, people _love_ to do things like that. There is a certain kind of voyeuristic pleasure that people get out of taking apart the work of others _especially_ if it’s in a context where the person seems to be begging for help and whose work appears to have ‘failed’. Furthermore, there is a very common tendency for people (authors) on the internet to take on an immediate patronizing attitude the moment someone else presents them with work of theirs to critique, especially if the person presents it in some sort of ‘failed’ context (even if it is a context where likely no one has actually yet seen it!). Once such an invitation is made, they suddenly become ‘experts’ in their own eyes, and the person making the request is immediately perceived as a ‘novice’ or at least inferior to them as far as that kind of work is concerned. Of course, there is no logical justification for such assumptions at all and they are utterly irrational, but it is what nevertheless tends to happen psychologically and I have witnessed this so many times.

But now here comes the really _astonishing_ thing about all of this - and this is where we get to see just how ‘selfless’ these folks were in their ‘willingness’ to ‘help’ a ‘rival author’: Would you believe that months later when I happened to check the sales record of the book on Amazon, I saw that not only did it still show zero sales, but it also showed very few free downloads on Kindle Unlimited and _zero_ free downloads from customers based in the US!! (Now, remember that the vast majority of posters here are US based.)

So what does this mean? In other words, out of the hundreds of people who saw that post and read the thread, not a single person either bought the book (which, again, was only 99c) or simply downloaded it for free despite the fact that I had made it clear when I posted the link that I had just placed the book on Kindle Unlimited and it was on free trial. Nobody even bothered to read any of the book’s pages on Unlimited! And all of this was DESPITE the fact that several of the respondents on the thread had commented on the fact that the story, as presented in both the blurb and the preview contents, was ‘intriguing’!!!

Just what do you make of that??!!

The story, by the way, was a horror novella about a chimp that mysteriously leaves an ominous note on its owner’s typewriter for the owner to see. Of course, that, in and of itself, was an intriguing premise for a horror story. Then when you add to that the fact that the writing itself “displayed talent”, according to the respondents, what else could one possibly want before one either pays 99c to read the rest of it or simply download it for free or, for that matter, just read it for free on Kindle Unlimited!

I mean, just reflect on it for a minute. Why would people who admittedly find the intro to a story intriguing not want to check out the rest of it, at least just out of curiosity, especially when they don’t even have to pay anything, and especially when they could simply save it and go through it at any time they want? Remember, again, that the most fascinating thing about this is that not one single person out of hundreds bothered or was willing to do so in spite of what they recognized about the story itself and despite the fact that they were engaged with the issue and it was right there in front of them.

It was so bewildering and baffling that I was forced to conclude that Amazon (which already had a notorious reputation for screwing over authors with their system) was messing with my account in some way and it was either that sales or free downloads or page reads of the book were being prevented or they simply were not being reported. I simply could not wrap my head around the notion that none of these people bothered to check out the story - a story that they themselves admitted was intriguing and well-written, at least from what could be seen. It just made no sense to me. I mean, are these people not supposed to be ‘authors’? Aren’t authors supposed to be inquisitive and love to read?? (Remember, again, that a number of random costumers on other publishing platforms actually _bought_ the book based on what they saw despite my having done no direct engagement of it to them.) It just made no sense.

But of course, the truth is that it _does_ make sense, in the sense that human nature is both irrational and in some ways nonsensical. Assuming, of course, that there was indeed no problem on Amazon’s part and it really was the case that no one on this site cared to go through the story despite seeing it, then it obviously narrows down essentially to two things: pettiness and context. Pettiness, of course, refers in this case to competitive jealousy, particularly the tendency to not want to take up a ‘rival’ author’s online book especially if doing so might help the person in some way, such as giving an increase in sales, downloads or page reads. Though if one happens to like the other author on a personal level, or the author is _already_ popular, then this tendency tends to reduce or disappear altogether. Then the other factor is context. That is, the context in which the work is presented to them. This is why it is never a good idea to place in front of people anything you are trying to sell or promote in any kind of negative light, such as telling them that you are having trouble selling the work. Doing that tends to color their perceptions and makes them negatively predisposed to the thing (even if the predisposition is irrational or illogical). This tendency is especially strong when you add to it the psychological phenomenon of group/pack mentality.

I should add to that that it is also not a good idea to be too humble about your work (especially to the point of self-deprecation) unless and until your work is already renowned and people can appreciate it for themselves. That was another mistake that I made in that thread: In my attempts to encourage comments and critique (which I had hoped would be helpful but turned out not to be), I displayed a lot of false modesty and excessive humility. Looking back, I should have simply told them the truth: that the book was one of the best stories that they would ever read. Of course, I’m sure they still wouldn’t have checked it out even if I had said that (in fact, it might have made them even _less_ willing to do so!) but at least I wouldn’t have done the story any injustice.

Notice that even after one takes all these things into consideration, one would _still_ expect _at least_ just one or two people (out of the hundreds) to have checked it out. And the fact that not a single person did remains truly remarkable. You can understand why I simply _had_ to suspect that Amazon may be the real culprit (especially in light of what happened on other platforms).

Overall, the point is that human beings are primarily emotionally and instinct driven creatures and are usually not rational actors. And that is something that one needs to take into account when trying to sell or promote subjective pieces of work to the general public. If you go into it having a much higher expectation of human nature, you will usually be very disappointed. As I myself indeed have been. Perhaps the biggest revelation for me in recent years has been how astonishingly self-centered, non-inquisitive and incurious (as well as tunnel-visioned) most people actually are, even people who are normally regarded as educated and intelligent.

But, as i said earlier, I believe that actual quality of work still matters to some significant degree in the e-book marketplace. And by ‘quality’, I mean _both_ storytelling as well as writing quality, which in any case tend to overlap significantly. But even if quality did not matter at all and it was utterly irrelevant as far as success in modern indie publishing is concerned, I still would personally find it hard if not psychologically impossible to consciously write garbage knowing that it will sell well as long as it ‘hits the right buttons’. It’s not just an issue of personal integrity on my part; I simply think it is much more beneficial in the end regardless of what happens.

One conclusion that I guess people who are interested in this sort of business can draw from these observations regarding the e-fiction marketplace might be that volume is much more important than quality and that it is better to be volume-oriented than quality-oriented at least when dealing with the online indie publishing world. (Sort of like throwing spaghetti on a wall; some of it sticks, some of it doesn’t.) Of course, at the same time, having a volume-oriented disposition (as opposed to quality) should not actually stop a good writer from still producing quality work as long as one isn’t consciously churning out garbage.

So in other words, yes there are many factors that can affect how well a book does but I believe that a book’s writing quality remains very much one of them though it may or may not play a role in any given book.

I concur with your observations regarding book covers and I have made a similar point about them in an extensive article that I published on here during that period in which I basically pointed out that an exaggerated importance was placed on them by many in the indie publishing world. Not surprisingly, this got completely distorted by respondents as though I had argued that excellent covers have no importance whatsoever when I argued no such thing.

There is one last thing I want to mention regarding quality of literary work. And I won’t say too much about it here because it is something that deserves a special topic all on its own. There is a very popular and rather bizarre myth that one commonly hears expressed in the (online) world of fiction publishing: that writers are somehow incapable of judging the quality of their work [even by their own standards, supposedly]. I have noticed that many people have a habit of throwing out this claim whenever an author expresses frustration over a work of theirs that they believe is very good but has not (yet) taken off as they had hoped. In such situations, someone is always bound to come along and snidely remark that perhaps the author is simply wrong and the work isn’t actually good. There is even a certain highly self-promoting author in the indie publishing circuit called Dean Smith who expresses this notion with the statement “a writer is the worst judge of his/her own work”. (Note that that sentence, as absurd as it is, if interpreted in a different way, is trivially true only in the sense that commercial writers are ultimately writing for other people and not for themselves.)

I happen to believe - or, rather, know - that this claim is complete and utter nonsense, even though it is very popular (as are a lot of nonsensical and silly beliefs). It is the sort of thing that people tend to say that sounds like it makes sense on the surface but, once you scratch beneath it, you see that it is actually ludicrous and absurd. By the way, it is worth noticing that, like many other statements that Dean Smith goes around spouting, he completely and blatantly contradicts himself in this very statement through his own behavior and his own rhetoric on other occasions.

Like I said, the notion makes no sense logically when one actually thinks about it. It’s kind of like saying that a mother cannot possibly tell if her child is ugly or stupid just because it is her child and she therefore naturally has an emotional bias towards it. Sure, of course human beings often suffer from personal biases and self-deception. And it is also true that authors often have to take some time off from a finished work before they go through it again (due mostly to mental overloading or fatigue with respect to that particular work). But that still DOESN’T mean that they are incapable of telling (or at least sensing) when something of theirs isn’t of the right quality, or is of bad quality, especially when they could see it if it was someone else’s (or if they suffered amnesia that made them forget it was theirs and then took a look at the same work). At the very least, a strongly biased individual would simply be ambiguous about it in the sense that his/her mental state would be characterized by hopefulness mixed with a strong degree of doubt.

In fact, how would artistic creativity and individual production of quality work ever be possible in the first place if this nonsensical myth was true? How would artists ever know what they are doing? Does an artist constantly need other people telling him what to do while creating because he somehow cannot judge the work himself? And if that were to be the case, who then would be telling _those_ other people what to do? How would they themselves judge? Why should _their_ own judgments be trusted?

Notice that this myth tacitly and implicitly makes the assumption that much of writing ‘quality’ is objective (which I pointed out earlier). This is as opposed to it entirely being a matter of individual taste. Thus, I believe that the major reason why this myth is popular is because of a common tendency of both editors and authors to confuse either their own personal tastes or the tastes of a particular target audience (based on trends) with ‘objectivity’ of literary quality. Thus, one person may fiercely accuse the other of having a ‘poor eye’ for ‘quality’ when, in reality, they are actually just clashing over their own stylistic preferences.

Anyway, I’ll just leave it at that. Sorry my post went on for so long. But the topic was just too interesting for me to resist. Thanks for bringing it up.


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## ASG (Dec 5, 2020)

Hmm... Look, @Bear, I don't know you, I just joined a few months ago--wasn't on here when all that conversation you mention went down--but... honestly?

I was agreeing with you in the beginning, and then you started rambling about yourself for over 20 paragraphs  You lost me dude. I did read nearly everything but GOD...

What killed me was when you wrote that you "remained very humble all through" and then went on to praise your own work on and on and on and...

I'm sorry man, honestly, I have no bias, I don't know you, and we're definitely not 'rival authors' (I write epic fantasy, not horror), but I can understand why folks on this forum may not have felt like reading your books after having read your posts 

Being humble is not just a matter of being more realistic toward your writing, it's also about having respect toward others. Reread yourself, man. You sound like you're saying that you're better than Stephen King. I'm not saying everything he does is perfect (I've only ever read a couple of his books, not really my thing) and everyone has highs and lows, even famous writers, but get a grip man.

I'm trying to help you here, honestly. Because if you stay on this course, I suspect you'll always have trouble selling books.

Readers read, but they also like to know who the writers behind the words are. If what they find is someone who sounds like he is full of himself, it could well put them off (I know it would put ME off).

And if you're going indie, don't think they won't notice. A big part of an indie author's success goes through building a newsletter. That means writing stuff specifically for your readers. They WILL see who you are.

I don't know you, I don't know your books, but from my experience, everything I've seen and heard and experienced myself, if you're not selling, then there's something wrong somewhere.

If the problem isn't with the writing itself (though I wouldn't rule it out so dismissively), it'd have to be either the cover or the blurb, those are the usual suspects.

Try building a list, if you don't have one yet. That's what I'm doing now myself.

Anyway, just... chill, man  And try to get beta readers, and don't rely on family and friends to tell you if your stuff is good. They'll rarely say anything negative.

Oh and also, just wanted to let you know that there are plenty of authors out there willing to help new ones. I would know, several have been helping me with swaps and advice etc. So again, if you have had a negative experience in this field, I'd suggest taking a step back and questioning the way you present yourself.

Again, just trying to help...


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Bear said:


> But now here comes the really _astonishing_ thing about all of this - and this is where we get to see just how ‘selfless’ these folks were in their ‘willingness’ to ‘help’ a ‘rival author’: Would you believe that months later when I happened to check the sales record of the book on Amazon, I saw that not only did it still show zero sales, but it also showed very few free downloads on Kindle Unlimited and _zero_ free downloads from customers based in the US!! (Now, remember that the vast majority of posters here are US based.)
> 
> So what does this mean? In other words, out of the hundreds of people who saw that post and read the thread, not a single person either bought the book (which, again, was only 99c) or simply downloaded it for free despite the fact that I had made it clear when I posted the link that I had just placed the book on Kindle Unlimited and it was on free trial. Nobody even bothered to read any of the book’s pages on Unlimited! And all of this was DESPITE the fact that several of the respondents on the thread had commented on the fact that the story, as presented in both the blurb and the preview contents, was ‘intriguing’!!!
> 
> Just what do you make of that??!!


Personally, what I make of that is that you can't tell what a person really thinks until you ask them to spend money on something. Sure, they're happy to tell you that it sounds intriguing because it costs them nothing, and because being honest with their opinion will cause a stink. So they offer some nebulous comment - it sounds intriguing - and now they're off the hook. But the question that really needs to be asked is, 'does it sound intriguing/interesting/good enough to get you to spend money and/or time on?'


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## OenonesPen (Jun 28, 2021)

Bear said:


> I mean, just reflect on it for a minute. Why would people who admittedly find the intro to a story intriguing not want to check out the rest of it, at least just out of curiosity, especially when they don’t even have to pay anything, and especially when they could simply save it and go through it at any time they want? Remember, again, that the most fascinating thing about this is that not one single person out of hundreds bothered or was willing to do so in spite of what they recognized about the story itself and despite the fact that they were engaged with the issue and it was right there in front of them.


What's your chimp story called, Bear? I'll give it a go.


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