Writers seem to fall into two camps: those that aspire to best-seller status and those that don’t. The latter snort derisively at the lowbrow efforts that top the lists, perpetuating the stereotype that quality is an aquired taste. Others write intentionally towards sales, shuttling serious topics in favor of murder mysteries and epics.
As someone who reads pretty regularly from the NY Times best-seller list, I can both appreciate the snobbery and challenge it. While serious reading is essential, it is not the only reason to read. Reading kills time, entertains, and transports the reader to other places and times. Writers who earn these coveted slots often work just as hard as their more talented, underselling counterparts. In the end, a story is a story. If it speaks to your reader, you have succeeded.
So what exactly makes a book a best-seller? There are oodles of writers striving towards this goal who will never make it. But among those that do, a few commonalities stand out.
Here is my list of how to be a best-selling author.
- Be photogenic
Most best-selling authors are above- average looking. Selling means looking good. If you don’t believe me, take a look:
These are all women who could have appeared on The Bachelor in their single days. There is no proof of a correlation between talent and looks, but I suspect there is one between author photos and sales.
2. Gently Imitate
It is a fallacy that copycat projects never get published. Eighty percent of them don’t because the market can’t support everyone, but there are plenty that get snapped up to fill the reading hole left when the original is finished.
One case in point are the legions of Liane Moriarty knockoffs. Liane Moriarty took the publishing world by storm when she perfected a formula for a new type of domestic suspense. Her protagonists are white, suburban, heterosexual, and usually upper middle class. They are almost always mothers. The plots of her books center on a suspected crime that could turn the protagonist’s world upside down. In one, the main character discovers a letter written by her husband in which he appears to confess to a crime. In another, a murder occurs at a school function.
Sally Hepworth cribs pretty liberally from this formula. In The Mother-in-Law, Lucy is a young mother living in a Sydney suburb. When her husband’s mother dies, the family falls under police suspicion. Could one of them have killed her?
The tension in these books revolves around a domestic house of cards, in which a perfectly nice life might be ruined by one fateful false move. Readers end the books relieved that their harried lives are comparatively safe.
3. Create a Brand
Most best-selling authors have a brand. Harlan Coben writes missing persons stories set in New Jersey. Taylor Jenkins Reid writes about show business. Anne Lamott and Glennon Doyle write spiritual memoirs from the 12 step perspective. If you can’t do a series, your books should be similar enough that readers know what to expect.
4. Create Crossovers
Instead of writing full-fledged sequels, authors are now borrowing from TV and doing crossovers. Characters from other books make brief appearances.
In The Boy from the Woods, lawyer Hester first appears on a talk show arguing in defense of her client, a wealthy New Yorker who was caught on video assaulting a homeless man. This is a brief reference to Simon Greene, the protagonist from Coben’s Run Away.
In The Maidens, group therapist Mariana visits her niece at Cambridge after a series of murders place a professor under suspicion. At one point she returns to London to consult with colleague Theo Faber, who has recently taken a job at the Grove. He is working with a catatonic client who murdered her husband. Fans of The Silent Patient get a new lens on the protagonist from that book.
5. Be Adaptation Friendly
Taylor Jenkins Reid had a unique talent for writing books that are cinematic. You immediately see the visual location and actors filling the roles. The same goes for many other authors, including newbie TJ Newman. The closer your narrative is to a screenplay, the higher your sales will be.
6. Hire A Super Famous Co-Writer
In the latest and most obnoxious trend, best-selling authors James Patterson and Louise Penny have collaborated with Bill and Hillary Clinton, respectively, to create co-written narratives that are making boffo sales, partly because of the built-in publicity. I refuse, on principle, to read these books. To my knowledge, neither of the Clintons ever aspired to write fiction so these projects seem like a crass attempt by publishers to guarantee sales projections.
(Edited to add: Bill Clinton’s two books with James Patterson have been on the best-seller list. Hillary Clinton’s book with Louise Penny will be released in October.)
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