"Bestselling Author." Those words sound like a dream come true. They tell the world that your book is important, influential, and valuable.
How does a book become a bestseller? On the surface. it seems obvious. Make a list of every book purchase and add them up. Actual bestseller lists are more complicated. Today, I want to go over several common bestseller lists and teach you what makes them work.
Amazon Bestseller
Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers for books. Amazon curates a bestseller list for each book category, as well as an overall bestseller list. As I write this, the overall top three books are The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can't Stop Talking About by Mel Robbins, and two colouring books by Coco Wyo, Girl Moments and Little Corner. The list updates once an hour, so it might have changed by the time you read this.
The overall bestsellers sell hundreds of copies a day. However, individual categories can have smaller sales values. Some categories can reach number one with only a couple of sales.
In 2016, marketer Brent Underwood created a book called Putting My Foot Down on Amazon. The book contained no text. The cover was a photo of the author's foot with one of Amazon's template covers. With only three sales, it received the bestseller ribbon in the "Psychology > Movements > Transpersonal" and "Social Science > Freemasonry & Secret Societies" categories. He wrote about his experience in The Observer.
In 2021, reporter Max Fosh created a bestseller using his friend's text messages. The cover art was a photo of his tea towel. He managed to get the book onto the top 100 overall books list by asking his friends to buy it at a specific time. He created a video about this experience.
Using these tactics is a bad idea! The short-term gains can lead to more problems in the long run.
Grocery Store Bestseller
Kristine Kathryn Rusch notes that if you have a bestseller list without a source, that is not an actual bestseller list. Marketing companies have picked the books they want and where they should rank. positions. “You have to work with a distributor’s ad rep (usually) to buy—say—the #10 position for books in the Safeway grocery store chain. (No, I have no idea how much that costs. But it’s in the tens of thousands.)”*
Books in grocery store bestseller lists have larger marketing campaigns. That means that they can appear on other bestseller lists at the same time. They might also be past bestsellers that fell off the charts.
New York Times Bestseller
Various print authorities curate bestseller lists. These include the New York Times. Journalists estimate getting on the list requires selling 5000 copies in a week.
The New York Times places a dagger (†) next to books that have a high number of bulk orders. Non-fiction books or political memoirs often get this treatment, according to LitHub. In one egregious case of bulk-buying, a debut publisher and debut author manipulated the Times list to get a book with almost no promotion to the number one spot. The Times edited their list to remove it once the public raised a fuss.
Not every debut author and debut publisher is manipulating the market. Jill Bearup's self-published debut novel became a Barnes & Noble bestseller because she had a large pre-existing audience who was eager to buy.
She had 526 thousand YouTube subscribers. Her novel was adapted from a series of short films she made. Viewers asked her to turn the short films into a book, and she agreed.
Barnes & Noble had access to the book before Amazon America did. American readers who weren't fussy about platforms placed preorders with Barnes & Noble. Enough readers pre-ordered from that website that it became a platform bestseller.
Conclusion
With different groups having different definitions of "bestseller," what should you use? Honestly, it's up to you. A Publisher’s Weekly article noted that a book with “bestseller” status might not keep selling. Many popular books never appear on those lists, and many books that do are forgotten by the next week.
Long-term impact involves finding readers who love your book. A best-selling book has broad appeal and a well-known author. A powerful book is one that a single reader enjoys.
Siretona Creative wants to create books that go beyond the numbers. We publish compelling books with committed authors in a collaborative community. Just today, we launched the memoir Going Big: Lessons on Success in Business, Life, and Faith by Richard Magnussen. He crafted his memoir the same way he crafts furniture: with high-quality material, a keen eye for detail, and pride in his work. From a furniture factory in a chicken coop to business deals in China, from humble beginnings to headquarters in North Carolina and warehouses in Vietnam and California, this is a Canadian good-news story about a family-owned business built on a foundation of faith that will inspire and entertain you, encourage and challenge you.
Do you want a compelling book that goes beyond numbers?
Let's talk about it.
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