The makings of a bestseller

[Chessie]

Best-seller status never indicates anything about the quality of a book.

Agreed. The occasions when I have graced the Best Seller's aisle at the bookstores, I didn't find most of the stories appealing. There's a recent one based off the Rapunzel fairytale (name is escaping me) that looked promising but it was over $20 so I didn't get it (that's way too much for a book that's only going to collect dust anyway). Its all about individual taste. Write what you love, the rewards will come. I just want my books to be loved somehow. I rather have a small, yet devoted, fanbase than try to write for the masses.

 

[BWFoster78]

OPINION ALERT

I hate James Patterson! I haven't even read any of his books but they all reek of PANDERING TO THE MASSES instead of being original. His kid's series? Witch and Wizard. Middle School. Knockoffs of Harry Potter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He team writes most of them--but why do I get the vibe that he is more or less contributing the name rather than the talent??? His adverts drive me insane. He's a pompous self-promoter and that makes me never want to read his books. He might be amazing, but I don't care, because his marketing turns me off that much!!!

Best-seller status never indicates anything about the quality of a book.

I've only read one of his, and I didn't care for it at all. Nonetheless, he's found a market. If we want to achieve success, we'd do well to study those who have succeeded.

 

[Sheilawisz]

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[Nameback]

Beautifully succinct Nameback, but I reckon the science has been (kinda) understood for a long time. It's the basis of all marketing after all.

Well, honestly I don't know much about the publishing industry specifically, but if it's anything like politics or film, then their advertisers are some of the least scientific people on the planet.

I know I'm getting pretty tangential here, but I love talking about this stuff; data as a concept is very threatening to incumbents, and not just in the political sense. Publishers and marketers (and copy-writers and TV ad producers and so on) are not like doctors or lawyers. They don't command high salaries, prestige, and respect because they have a vast library of technical knowledge that takes ten years and $300,000 to obtain. They have those positions because they are considered uniquely possessed of the talent at making decisions in their field of expertise--and expertise is what they are being compensated for. They're being compensated for knowing the right answers, for having a "feel" for what will sell, for having a "philosophy" of how to market something.

Data threatens all of that. Data says that the right answer isn't an art, isn't intangible, isn't something some people have a gift for and everyone else doesn't. Data is democratic. Data says that once the answer is uncovered, anyone can know it and anyone can act on it. I don't know if you ever saw or read "Moneyball" but it's a great example of this. Stats geeks revolutionized baseball in the early '00s, and human scouts and old-school GMs resisted like crazy because it threatened their value. All of a sudden, a scout's unique talent for finding talent isn't so unique when it's all done in an Excel spreadsheet.

In my own life, I had to deal with these people. Everyone thinks their state/district/city/neighborhood is different, is unique. I can't tell you how many times I heard people tell me: "oh, well mail advertisement might not work where you've been, but people read their mail here." I would get blue in the face reciting the facts and figures of randomized controlled experiments that showed that political direct-mail advertisements had a treatment effect of zero, and yet people would still spend money on it.

One local campaign I advised even spent 80% of their advertising budget on mail, despite my constant and repeated pleas to do otherwise. The senior consultant also happened to run a firm that designs and sends political direct-mail advertisements. You can see how I didn't win that battle.

Very few people want to believe that data has the answers. We all want to believe that we are unique, and if we're paid well for something, we really want to believe that. Data says we aren't. That's what I find beautiful about it--data says we're all fundamentally similar in so many ways, all operating on the same essential substrate of human cognition. And more than that, what can be predicted can be controlled. If we can predict the outcomes of our actions, then we can choose the better course. But that threatens all those who say that they have a monopoly on knowledge, on knowing the better course.

 

[The Dark One]

You do like talking about it, don't you!

In fact, I agree wholeheartedly - my point was that I think this has been understood in a primitive way for a while. I work in education management and use of big data to target and plan action has been around for a long time. Book marketing too, in terms of sales analysis, but as I said - very primitive in comparison with the level you're talking about.

 

[deilaitha]

We all are entitled to our opinion, but please, when you refer to your least favorite Authors do not post anything offensive, abusive, defamatory or hateful. Authors sometimes come to visit sites like Mythic Scribes, and we want to keep up our reputation as a High Quality site and community for Fantasy writers.

Thanks for the reminder to keep it classy. I will remember to be more polite when discussing my opinions.