There is a distinctive margin between everybody in the world who has aspired to write a book, and those who have actually done it. Zooming even further in, there is an equally sized gap between those who have published a book and those who have been able to write a bestseller book.
What is the fundamental difference between these demographics of authors, and how can you transition from being in the former camp into the latter?
Made for Success has labored tirelessly in our research and development lab to devise strategies that equip authors with the highest likelihood of success in their published works.
Today, I’m going to equip you with our very best book writing ingenuity so that you too can write a bestseller book.
What makes a bestselling book?
Can the quality of a book truly be judged based on its sales numbers? And what are sales, anyway?
For many years, writers, publishers, and the general public have developed an obsession with the concept of the bestseller. They fixate upon books that have “succeeded” in their eyes, and aim to replicate that success for themselves.
Pop quiz time; do you think that a bestselling book is…
- A product of the sheer quality of writing and ingenious ideas within its pages
- The result of a well-tuned and finely executed marketing campaign
What was your answer?
Do you think that a bestselling book only reaches that strata due to the groundbreaking content adorning its pages? Or do you think that it’s all the work of marketing executives engineering a campaign for massive reach?
The truth is that there are examples of each of these “techniques” independently producing bestselling books. But in our experience, it’s going to require a healthy combination of each.
To write a bestselling book, you need to have an idea that’s going to present something new or captivating to your audience. But having a well-researched, targeted campaign will be absolutely necessary in order to propel it into bestseller status.
Start with a Distinct Plan
If writing a bestselling book is a goal that you’ve taken on, you’re not going to want to be thinking about it at the tail end of the final chapter.
Highly successful authors always think about their book’s plan from start to finish before the pen hits the paper (or your fingers hit the keyboard).
We have a wonderfully written article on how to outline a nonfiction book for maximum clarity for your reader. It’s key to start organizing your thoughts and getting things laid out ahead of time.
The subject matter of the book has to be tailored to a known audience and present a clear value proposition for a reader.
Doing so makes it much simpler to engineer a marketing strategy that will get the book a maximum amount of exposure.
Leverage the Power of Amazon
What is black, yellow, and gets over 120 million searches each month?
Amazon, the e-commerce singularity, has a dominating influence when it comes to the success and failure of book launches.
Understanding how to optimize your book to perform better on Amazon starts with the outline, believe it or not. A well-optimized title, description, and keywords that are proven to perform well in Amazon book searches will be hugely deterministic as to whether or not your book gets organically discovered (or goes viral).
This is because users often search in Amazon for problems that need to be solved or questions that they may have. If your book has already been crafted with some of these problem sets in mind, then your likelihood of showing up in these search results goes up exponentially.
We’ve been developing secret recipes for higher Amazon performance for years now, and have demonstrated repeated success with our Amazon Optimized Book Launch strategy.
If you want to learn more about that, we highly recommend booking a conversation with our team of book marketing experts.
Avoiding Techniques that Don’t Work
By now, you should know that there aren’t exactly any shortcuts to writing a bestseller. However, there are plenty of people selling exactly such a “solution.” Here are some things to be aware of as you consider your book publishing options.
- Nobody can truly “hack” the media. Media can buy you publicity, but human beings are ultimately going to make a choice on what sounds good for them or not — especially when shelling out money for a book
- It’s close to impossible to just “make” any book a bestseller through a carefully engineered campaign. A book without strong fundamentals is the literary equivalent of vaporware
- Beware vendors of campaigns that promise big numbers without walking you through the process
- Knowing how to launch a bestselling book starts with knowing how to write one
Any author worth their salt should be primarily concerned with writing a bestselling book before they endeavor to rake in big profits by launching one. I know, I know… but sometimes the lessons that sound the most cliche are the ones that hold the most truth.
If you start with a strong “why” for your book (and are equipped with the best advice and counsel) then there’s no reason why your book can’t achieve bestseller status!
Final Advice on Writing your Bestselling Book
If you follow this framework, you’ll have everything you need in order to write a bestselling book that scoops up awards.
- Begin with a powerful idea that casts new light on an existing problem or subject
- Write for the audience, not for yourself. Your audience will be directly responsible for whether or not your book is a success or a flop
- Exercise scrutiny in your editing. Bestselling books are clear about their messages. Trust in a good editor to sort through what stays, what goes, and what gets re-sequenced
- Never stop promoting your book — a book launches once, but can make an impact forever!
We’ve had a proven track record of helping our authors create more and more bestsellers that rock the marketplace. If you’d like help on planning out your next (or your first) bestselling book, click here to book a strategy call with one of our book marketing experts!