How To Get On The Best Sellers' List
- Jun 24, 2015
- 3 min read
The publishing business can often seem like the mafia.
Nobody really knows what’s going on behind closed doors and in order to get into their secret society it feels like you need to wack somebody—probably an employee of Amazon.
For example, you would think hitting the New York Times Best Selling list would be straight forward. You sell the most copies of your book in a certain amount of time then you get on the list.
Not so fast.
The New York Times takes in several factors when they consider creating their list, not all of them public. If a particular outlet is not selling any of a certain book or are reporting proportionally high sales then they discount those figures.
If you’re an Amazon exclusive then you’re out of luck. Also if someone purchases thousands of copies then they don’t include those figures either.
The New York Times does it this way so people can’t game the system. However, there are several companies that guarantee your book hit the number 1 bestseller by buying up books in different outlets so they appear to be legitimate purchases.
Tony Hsieh, co-founder of Zappos, wrote a book called Delivering Happiness, and he used one of these services. They aren’t cheap and usually cost something in the range of a quarter of a million dollars.
It's Not Just A Numbers Game
The New York Times also has up to 30 lists in difference genres and they take their books from 37 reports shared by so-called industry leaders, so if these “industry leaders” don’t like your book then it will be extremely difficult to make the list.
I can almost hear them saying, “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
And before you ask, there is no magic number to become a bestselling author. You could sell 10,000 in a week, or 50,000, and you could still not make it on the Best Sellers’ list.
Why not?
It also depends on where you sell them.
Most best seller lists are taken from the Nielson Bookscan which only reports about 75% of all book sales. But not all outlets report to Bookscan so some sales aren’t accounted for. In addition, some outlets, especially airports, don’t report sales right away so this can also skew results.
The Other Not-So Sexy Lists
The USA Today and the Amazon 100 are probably the truest lists of copies sold, which means they don’t use algorithms or secret societies to determine best sellers. So for those writers who are making a living these two lists are the ones you want to follow. After all, it doesn’t matter about who sells your books, as long as the money flows in your pocket.
Of course that means that writers can manipulate the results with more ease.
There doesn’t seem to be a perfect list that will actually determine whether your book is good or not.
I wouldn’t worry about whether or not you hit these lists. They are great marketing tools for sure and being a New York Times Best Selling author can open some doors for you—including movie deals or being on Oraph. It’s a good ego boost but the lists won’t make or break a career.
Do The Best Seller Lists Matter?
You want to focus on longevity and not how many books you sell in a two week period. It is more important to sell your books long after they have been published rather than have a huge spike and then no sales at all. It is far more impressive to be on the list for several months, even if it’s not a number 1 bestseller. That is the sign of a really good book.
The most important thing, however, is not to let something completely out of your hands control whether or not you feel successful. There are plenty of great authors out there who make a living with their writing and don’t wind up on the best sellers list. They bypass the book mafia all together.
Joel Mark Harris is a writer, film producer and marketer. (@joelmarkharris) He is the founder of Story Laboratory which helps artists market their work. To get a free ebook on How to Make Money Blogging and a Content Marketing Tool Kit sign up HERE
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