I was half way down a bottle – sorry; er, glass of port the other day, when it occurred to me that nothing sells like an Irish writer’s horrible Christmas. The bleaker the better. These are not “but we were happy” stories; these are stories where nobody is safe. Endings are sour. And nostalgia exists merely to be rammed…
Category: Bestseller Authors
How Do You Write For An International Market?
They say, ‘Write what you know’. Or the world will see through you. That’s all very fine and well, except when you turn out exceptionally beautiful prose in your unique and local dialect, which readers beyond the next mountain find difficult to understand. Or in more general terms, America. I know James Joyce, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh and Dylan…
When is a book a Bestseller?
Gather round, kids. I have good news, and I have bad news. What constitutes a best seller? How does a book qualify for the moniker, and more to the point, for the modern author, what does it really mean to have written a bestseller? What is a bestseller? No points for stating the obvious, but a…
Bestseller Trends Part 3: Woman, Know Thy Place
In a previous post I mentioned how, in 2011 and 2012, female authors topped the bestseller lists by writing the books everyone wanted to read. In comparison to ten years earlier, they were not only far more prominent on the list, but outselling male authors for the first time. It was all very promising. However,…
And the Blockbusting Author of the 1990s was…. an emerging writer!
We move from the 1980s to the 1990s, when it was a little easier to sell your books… but only marginally. “Where’s John Grisham?” was one comment I got regarding my post on how few authors reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list in the 1980s. The answer? Lying in the long grass, waiting to own the…
Only 33.5 Authors wrote Bestsellers in the 1980s. Fact
It’s Reeling in the Years time. First stop, those big-haired, blockbusting 1980s. You may not know this yet, but book sales were remarkably different in the ’80s. (I know, because I’ve charted the last 3 decades already into earth-shatteringly revealing, multicoloured pies, and I don’t mind telling you, I haven’t been this excited by data since checking my Santa…
Bestseller Trends Part I: Women
In which we revisit those bestseller lists, and I wonder if I should have drawn some nice bunny rabbits to make them prettier* Another pattern is evident from the 2012 bestseller list. Of the top 15, there were only 3 men, and one of those was Tolkien, who had already been dead for some time. Despite Lee…
Self-publishing and e-publishing ——The authors are revolting!
Revolting, I tell you! Depending on who’s talking – author or print publisher – it could have either meaning. This whole publishing lark has opened up. A quick look at the bestseller lists from recent years, following the e-book revolution, shows it. People are reading different stuff nowadays. Whether it’s because they’re finally able to get what they…
What Makes a Bestseller?
Trendspotting, or a Shamelessly Business-Like Approach to Writing It’s tempting to think that the democratisation of bookselling through self-publishing and e-publishing means that it’s harder than ever to rise above the noise and get published or more to the point, sell your book. Not at all. The deafening cacophony which once drowned out new authors…
Tara Sparling writes 