Are You Really A Bestselling Author?

I've seen a lot of discussion online recently concerning the 'bestseller' or 'bestselling' tag that many authors add to their online persona. There seems to be a general feeling that such tags are often not what they seem, or worse, seem to have no basis in fact.

Let me state at the outset that this post is not a criticism of authors who genuinely are 'bestsellers'. To gain such an accolade takes a lot of hard work, dedication and devotion, and would not have been possible if their work were not of a high standard. No, this post is aimed at the author who appears to be making claims that are not substantiated, in the hope of artificially increasing their discoverability, and presumably bolster their sales.

Many authors are desperate to achieve success (usually measured by sales volume), and will often employ underhand tactics to achieve that. This is odd, because there is no evidence that merely making such claims actually improves an author's sales. However, actually appearing on 'bestseller' lists almost certainly does increase sales. Hence, there's actually no short cut and making false claims is not helping you at all.

In fact, it may actually hinder you. The backlash is that readers very quickly become aware of marketing scams. Eventually, they distrust even the simplest claims, even ones that may be true. Although a particular 'bestseller' will not be to everyone's taste, the expectation in the book-buying public is that a 'bestseller' is called that for a reason, and they would like to have confidence in that accolade. Sadly, it seems their faith in the 'bestseller' tag is diminishing, which is bad news for all authors, whether they are 'bestselling' ones or not.

We could go even further and state that, at the very worst, making such false claims is misleading advertising, something for which big corporations are legally challenged. In the UK in 2009, for example, Olay were taken to task over their Definity eye cream for digitally altering Twiggy's features to be 'wrinkle-free'. I'm not suggesting all authors claiming to be 'bestsellers' are hounded for proof of their claims or sued for misrepresentation if they don't have any. But I am suggesting that falsely claiming 'bestseller' status is ethically (and probably legally) no different to Olay's misrepresentation, or any one of a number of high-profile false advertising scandals.

So, what does it actually take to get your book onto a 'bestseller' list and hence claim the 'bestselling author' status? Well, there are numerous lists which purport to show which books are the most popular, and most of these, as you'd expect, are based on sales volume.

Perhaps the easiest to understand, and possibly the easiest to aim at, is the Amazon bestseller list. The list is directly related to sales rank, though Amazon won't divulge exactly how sales rank itself is calculated. It's not a simple case of sales volume, but probably also takes into account click-throughs, number and quality of reviews, print versus ebook sales and the daily rate of sales. But, essentially, selling more books increases sales rank, and a higher sales rank can get you in the top 100 list, the top 10 list, and so on. If you're aiming for this list, the single most effective thing you can do is get a huge volume of sales on a single day. How many books do you need to sell? I'm afraid the goal-posts move but you might reach the #1 spot by selling a few thousand books in a single day. Sell 500 and you might make it to the top 100 list. If you sell 10,000 books throughout a year you still probably won't get on the bestseller lists; you need to concentrate those sales into a short space of time.

Unfortunately, Amazon don't display a sales rank for their 'bestsellers' lists, so it's difficult to know what sales rank you need to get you in those lists. But, crucially for the book-buying public, an Amazon sales rank that is 'visible' means your book isn't a 'bestseller', so you'd better have some hard evidence for why you're calling it such! If you're a 'bestseller' somewhere else or were sometime in the past, say so, because the buying public can see you aren't one at the moment on Amazon!

What about those other lists? Well, similar lists appear on Nook and iTunes, probably mostly driven by sales, although Kobo currently don't have bestseller lists. The advice is the same; if you want to increase rankings, and hence appear in bestseller lists, you need to sell more books! And finally there are the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller's lists. The former is probably the most coveted by authors, which is why I'm confused more authors don't substantiate their claims to this list. The NYT list is said to be driven only by consumer sales and market research indicates the number one spot probably means sales of around 9000 books per week. Although the NYT publicly state that their list doesn't include 'self-published' works, a number of self-published works have appeared in the list. I guess if the sales are sufficiently competitive with traditionally published books, they can't be ignored, and get quietly added to the list.

Although traditional publishers have a lot of advertising dollar available, and all 'bestseller' lists are probably manipulated to some degree, it isn't impossible for indie authors to get real 'bestseller' status, probably most easily on Amazon, but with the big players too! If you do attain these accolades, then you should wring every last bit of good marketing out of your success. But, please, don't make it up, because it's actually very obvious when you are. If your Amazon sales rank is visible to me I know you're nowhere near being an 'international bestseller' or however you want to phrase it!

Is there a simple rule that authors should apply in order to call themselves a 'bestseller'. Opinions differ. In the truest sense of the word, a 'bestseller' sells the 'best', so appearing in a top 100 does not make you a 'bestseller', although you should of course be proud of appearing in the list. If you reach #1 in a particular list or category, then you can call yourself a 'bestseller'. But you also have to be clear about which list you're referring to (#1 bestseller in 'children's books', for example). I would also suggest that appearing at the top of a list of 'free' books also doesn't qualify you for 'bestseller' status. Nothing was actually sold and the statistic doesn't relate to a book's popularity at all, only its download rate.

Just as corporations are now very clear about their advertising claims in order to avoid litigation (usually demoted to the 'small print'), authors should be too. Why not put a footnote to your 'bestselling' claim stating, for example, 'achieved #1 sales ranking in the 'children's books' category on the US Amazon site during September 2014'? There's something to be proud of in that statement, not ashamed of. If you are honest about it the reading public will respected you for it. They may even buy your book.

Comments

Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

An engraving by R. Graves entitled 'The Ghost Story', circa 1870. In his first full-length novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dickens gave us a peculiarly Victorian view of the Christmas tradition. The host of a Yuletide gathering, Mr. Wardle of Dingley Dell, informs his guests that “Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now — servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories”. So begins a long association of the traditional ghost story with Christmas-time; a tradition that has largely died out, but one that should be revived. Of course, the tradition of telling spooky stories at Christmas is much older than Dickens. It was already well-established in the early nineteenth century. In Old Christmas (from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent ., 1819), Washington Irving describes a busy Yuletide fireside with the parson “dealing forth strange a

American's Guide To Pronouncing British Place Names

You all know there's some minor (though understandable) differences between British and American spelling. For example, we have 'colour' for 'color', 'favour' for 'favor' and 'harbour' for 'habor'. We have 'centre' for 'center', 'fibre' for 'fiber' and 'litre' for 'liter'. And so on. These don't usually cause us any problems, especially since they are normally pronounced the same (although with differences in accent, which is an entirely different subject!). But, British spelling idiosyncrasies go far beyond these simple examples, and never more so than in our emotive and quaint place names. British place name spelling is about as intuitive as the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics - for the non-scientists among you, that means 'not at all'. Actually, it's not the spelling that's odd (they usually retain a perfectly logical spelling based

The Fastest Things In The Universe

Gravitational waves can't actually be seen as in this simulation. When gazing at the night sky from here on Earth, it’s easy to picture the Universe as calm and unhurried. But in reality, out there in space, things move fast – really fast. Putting aside particle accelerators and the like, the fastest-moving man-made object was the Helios 2 spacecraft launched in the 1970s. It reached a top speed of 68.75 km/s (153,800 mph) on its mission to the Sun. But this was just a leisurely stroll compared to the fastest things in the Cosmos. So, where do we find the real speed freaks of the Universe? Here’s a run-down of the top five. 1. Expansion of the Universe Speed: Greater than the speed of light! The Universe is expanding. But the Universe isn’t filling up ‘empty space’ as it expands because it is ‘space’ itself which is expanding. Although the laws of physics say that two objects can’t move faster than light speed with respect to each other, there is no such restricti

Who Was Ghost Story Writer "Mary E. Penn"?

The identity of Mary E. Penn, a late-Victorian author of ghosts stories and crime and mystery tales, is a complete enigma. Scholars of the macabre have been unable to discern any details of her person, origin or character (assuming she was indeed female). We only know that from the 1870s to the 1890s this author published a number of stories in periodicals, most commonly in The Argosy (Ellen Wood’s monthly publication). Some of her early contributions were anonymous (later attributed to Penn in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals ) and her name only appears from 1878 onwards. Her first story, At Ravenholme Junction , was published anonymously in The Argosy in December 1876, but was later ascribed to Penn on stylistic grounds by eminent supernatural fiction scholar Richard Dalby. Her other ghostly tales were Snatched from the Brink ( The Argosy , June 1878), How Georgette Kept Tryst ( The Argosy , October 1879), Desmond’s Model ( The Argosy , December 1879), Old Vanderhav

Black Holes 101

Artist's impression of a black hole. With new blockbuster movie Interstellar now in cinemas, there's a flurry of interest in black holes and wormholes. Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant for the production and insisted that the depiction should stay within legitimate boundaries. Apart from the odd bit of artistic license, of course! Black holes are scary, right? They suck in everything in their path. They devour whole planets, stars even, ripping them apart like mere wisps of smoke. They condemn anything that confronts them to an unknowable oblivion. It’s the stuff of nightmare, or at least a bad disaster movie. But I think black holes get a bad press. They are misunderstood, misrepresented. The truth is they are fascinating creatures, if confusing, and not a little bit weird. So, relax for a moment while I give you my quick and dirty guide to black holes. The Black Hole 101, if you like. Let’s start with a simple definition of a black hole

The Anglo-Saxon/Latin Rule, Again!

It's one of those rules we're often told as writers. Don't write in Latin, write in Anglo-Saxon! This so-called 'rule' has been around quite a while. In Politics & The English Language (1946) George Orwell wrote "bad writers... are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones". But, what does this mean? Do we have to check the etymology of every word we scribble down in our manuscript books, weeding out the obnoxious foreigners and replacing them with good, solid, stalwart Germanic conciseness? Or does it mean we should write in an archaic style and pepper our prose with lovely words such as erstwhile , forsooth and threap ? Are we banned from using words such as obfuscate , perambulate, egregious and impecunious ? Well, let's think about this for a moment, with a couple of examples. Here's the opening line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book Paul Clifford ; It wa s a dark and stormy nig

Flat Earth Fallacy

I'm an accepting kind of person. I generally allow people to think what they want, believe what they want and (pretty much) say what they want, within reason. But occasionally an opinion is so far-fetched, insulting or incorrect that it debases human intelligence (all human intelligence, not just mine). And then I feel I must speak up. One such 'opinion' is the belief in a 'flat' Earth. Although this topic has a substantial history (see for example Christine Garwood's Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea ), it has so far not been publicly contested in any great depth. Even Phil Plait, author of the ever-popular Bad Astronomy Blog , declined to give such a preposterous proposition any real air-time. And I don't blame him. It really is the most absurd idea. But it should be denounced, for any number of reasons. The basic premise of the 'flat-Earth' protagonists is that ancient cultures were right, the Earth is flat , a circular disk bo

Does Today's Music All Sound The Same?

What's wrong Simon? Is this music too interesting? Recently, whilst out shopping, my young son asked "why is all the music in these shops exactly the same?" He had a point. Every neon-illuminated consumer-hovel of fashion we visited was pumping out the same insidious four-to-the-floor musical effluent. There was no variation in rhythm, tempo, timbre or anything else. Absolute tedium. You've heard it said over and over again: "all today's music sounds the same!" It's something that your parents probably say about the music you listen to. Or you say about the music other people listen to. It was probably also something your grandparents said about the music your parents were into. But who is right? Are any of them right? Does today's music really all sound the same? Or is it just generational crankiness? If you're on the ball, you'll already know that the music industry doesn't have your best interests at heart when deciding w

The Date Of Christmas

I've said this many times before, but astronomy effects our daily lives in ways of which we're often unaware. For example, you may be surprised to find that the date of Christmas is almost certainly down to our ancient forebears' astronomical endeavours. Imagine you’re a prehistoric farmer. You would have little understanding of what we today call science. But you would almost certainly know a lot about the motion of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets around the sky. In fact, these motions would be very important to you. Why? Because they mark the passage of the seasons and the seasons dictate what sustenance is available to humankind. Your survival depends on them. If you want your crops to grow, your livestock to survive, your hunt to be a success, you need a good knowledge of where you are in the yearly cycle of life. And it is the skies which give you that knowledge. So, here's the science bit (as people annoyingly say!). In the morning, the Sun rises in the

Are Indie Authors Destroying The Market?

You're probably aware that we are drowning in an ocean of mediocrity. Yes, I know, there's mediocrity all around us; the TV, the music business, in fact everywhere you care to look. But I'm talking about mediocrity in 'literature', as if that term actually means something these days. Once upon a time, not so long ago, 'literature' was a respectable part of the art world. Authors were mysterious intellectuals, removed from society, tortured souls poring over their foolscap notepads with quill in hand. They were just names, often widely-known ones, like A-list celebrities with no public face, controversy or paparazzi. The authors' agents, dark figures sifting through their ever-growing slush pile of tales, held sway over a global industry from behind locked doors. The authors' publishers were equally elusive, a forbidden realm for those with literary aspirations, with the ability to put their clients names right into the homes of the reading public

[syn]finity:

Search This Blog