I can hear them now. “That Tara Sparling one. She’s some tulip.” “Come again?” “She tried to tell me how to buy a book. Feckin’ cheek of her. What’s next? How to get up in the morning? How to breathe??” Look – I know it seems simple. But this is more of an inquisitive How…
Category: Creating the Bestseller
What Price is Your Bestseller?
I’ve been having statistics withdrawal symptoms (itchy percentage points, twitchy tables, etc) – and I’m going to satisfy that right here, right now. Today I’m going to have a look at 2011 (because lovely as they were, I’m tired of those 2012 statistics ) in terms of their recommended retail price (RRP) and actual selling price (ASP). With Amazon, the price of…
2012 Bestselling Book Data. Visualised
Or, as we in the business like to call it, “A Load of Charts”. It’s great seeing all the data like this. I could extract meaning from it all day and still not get bored. Bet you wish you were me. We are now, as promised, going to look at sales volumes, to see what they tell…
5 Reasons why Self-Published Authors should be whipped for not using Editors
Have you ever written anything which, once proudly presented to someone else, turns out to be a total turkey which is either illegible or incredible? What often sets bestsellers apart from books which “just do okay” is polish, and by polish, I mean editing. I wish I had a percentage for all the self-published works out there…
Naughtie Book Sales (and no. It’s not what you’re thinking)
Want naughty book sales? Have a look at 2012. This, however, is all about the Noughtie/Naughties: those transformational years in terms of self-publishing and e-publishing, from 2000-2009. In previous posts about book sales in the 1980s and 1990s, we saw that very few authors actually made it to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller…
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 