Why You Need a Bestselling Book and How to Have One

This post is for industry leaders, or those aspiring to be industry leaders, who want added credibility as an author.

I’ve published seven books about addiction, recovery and relationships — four with HarperCollins, one with Simon & Schuster, one with an indie publisher and one on my own. One of those books became a New York Times bestseller. One of those became a #1 Amazon bestseller.I’ve seen all sides of it.

And as a result, I’ve become a person who helps industry leaders publish books.I can’t tell you how many of these conversations start out with people telling me they are “working” on their memoir. They ask me what they should do. And I tell them exactly what I’m about to tell you…

If You’re Writing Your Memoir & Want to Publish Traditionally, Please Stop!

“Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here’s something I was shocked to learn: most publishers don’t read entire non-fiction books written by authors they don’t know.

Of course, it makes sense: do you want to read 300-ish pages by someone you don’t know?

Probably not. But you might like to read 10–50 pages.

In other words, you, like this prospective publisher we’re talking about, may not be open to reading a full manuscript but would be open to reading a proposal — which is essentially just document which describes the book and explains why it will be successful.

Good news for the person who’s already been writing the book: proposals include a sample chapter or two.

If, however, someone asked you to read their novel, it would be a different situation: you’d read the whole thing. In that case, you want the story and not the story about the story.But back to your memoir.

Non-fiction proposals contain several crucial elements: an introduction or overview of the idea, a chapter outline, one or two sample chapters, a marketing analysis section which lists other books in the same genre that have sold well as evidence that this book will as well and a promotional section which details the profile of the author and the things that author will do to help sell the book.And once you have all those things, your book is as good as sold, right?

Er, no.

The Reality of Publishing

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination” — John Lennon

There’s a problem.The problem is that traditional publishing is an unrealistic option for most. Book proposals can end up being as long as 60 pages and many end up hiring writers for the job, paying roughly $10,000 out of pocket.

Afterwards, they must find an agent willing to represent them and, most agree, that’s a notoriously difficult process.

Once those hurdles are overcome and the agent submits the book proposal to publishing houses, the reality of the state of publishing sets in and that’s this: roughly three in every 10,000 book proposals sell. This means that most people come away from the process $10,000 poorer and thoroughly discouraged.

If the best possible scenario unfolds and a book deal is forthcoming, there are often serious financial details to be considered. Hiring a ghost writer can cost upwards of $100,000 and a “nice deal,” according to the publishing bible Publishers Marketplace, nets an author between $1-$49,000. Once an author has earned out the advance, royalties — usually 10% of the retail price — kick in but the reality is that most books don’t earn out their advances.

Assuming the financials are straightened out, it usually takes roughly two years from book sale to release. Because publishers tend to focus on only one book per season while releasing roughly 10, most authors are left on their own to promote and sell their books.But the biggest problem isn’t publishing.

The biggest problem is that most industry leaders don’t have months and months to work with a proposal writer and then years to work with a ghost writer. Furthermore, waiting for at least two years before adding the title of author to their resume essentially causes them to lose out on two years worth of clients they would otherwise have.

Feeling this is a radical turn around for me. I’ve been such an advocate of traditional publishing that I teach students how to write and sell book proposals. While I still believe in the traditional mode for those who’ve always dreamed of having HarperCollins stamped on their book’s spine and having it available at their local book store, I’ve discovered that it’s just not realistic for most people.

To Self-Publish or Not: That Is the Question

“Anyone who says it’s easy to self-publish a book is either lying or doing a shitty job.”- Nan McCarthy

There seems to be this myth out there that the path to success involves loading a book onto Amazon and watching your sales figures rise.I once bought into this myth.

I had published three books through HarperCollins and figured I had a solid following so that I didn’t need that crusty old publisher to be successful. Plus I was on a TV show giving sex and dating advice.

And so I wrote a short book filled with all that dating advice, titled it Sex with Anna David, loaded it onto Amazon, and well…no one cared.

Later, I was lucky enough to be one of the first writers assigned a Kindle Single. These are, essentially, short books that Amazon assigns to certain writers. I worked with an editor there on an idea based around my relationship with my cats and next thing I knew, Animal Attractionbecame the most successful book I ever wrote. I followed that up with another Kindle Single, They Like Me, They Really Like Me and that, too, has performed really well.

As for Sex with Anna David? My 30,000+ Twitter followers didn’t seem to want to part with $5.99 for it. I sold under 10 copies — and then I took it down.Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about how to self-publish. I’ve figured out, in fact, how to release a book under a system that guarantees reviews, best-sellerdom and essentially Amazon doing your work for you. It’s actually exactly what we do for our publishing clients.

What Made This Traditional Girl Go Indie

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination” — Jimmy Dean

I had a really easy initial path to publication: I was working on a novel for a year and during that year, several agents reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be repped by them. I picked the one I liked best and she sold my book for $50,000 the following week.

Before you resent me for my easy route to publication, let me assure you that this is not what happened with later books of mine. I had a Cinderella sort of beginning.And that wasn’t because I was so awesomely talented.

It was that I had spent the previous three years building up my name by writing for magazines. By that point, I’d been published in Playboy, People, Premiere, Us Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Variety, Cosmo and Details. I was doing a sex column at a magazine called Razor.This means that I’d spent years developing my voice — and also that I knew people in the media who could support my book when it was released.

Publishers arguably care more about that second factor than they do about the first.

More reasons not to be jealous of my experience: Years before, I’d gone through the process of getting a screenwriting agent by going through a book called The Hollywood Creative Directory, mailing a letter (this was the Dark Ages) to everyone in there who took unsolicited submissions, sending the four out of the hundred who responded my script and then singing with the one out of there who liked it.

(That agent, for the record, never sold one of my scripts.)

And even in my book writing career, unlike Cinderella, I struggled after my beginner’s luck to again find the glass slipper.

Working with Your Publisher

“Publication is not all it’s cracked up to be.”-Anne Lamott

When I first landed at Regan Books, my life felt blessed. Yes, it had taken a few months for the negotiating process to happen but after that, I had an amazing editor who took me and my agent to lunch when I was in New York and told me we should work on developing reality shows about my life.

The famed Judith Regan told me she loved my book and that she thought they should slap my face on the cover.Then, in the biggest scandal to hit publishing, Judith Regan was fired. (Because I happened to meet with her the day this happened, I even made the New York magazine story about it.)

Most of the books they were planning to release were trashed.I was one of the lucky ones.

Party Girl was released under an imprint that HarperCollins invented.

But there was no one at my publishing house anymore — no marketing department, no one in PR, not even my editor.

Writers talk about being orphaned when their editor goes to another house between when their book is acquired and released. What happened in my case is that I was orphaned and then the orphanage was burned to the ground.

Here’s What Happens If Your Publishing House Doesn’t Go Under

“The conventional definition of reality, and the idea of ‘normal life’, mean nothing.”–Sigmar Polke

In most cases, the writer will spend several months working with the editor on the book. Then they will spend a lot of time waiting for Release Day.

During that time, authors get “name” writers to blurb their books.

I got my first one, Jerry Stahl, because I saw him in public, recognized him. introduced myself and asked him. He graciously said yes and wrote me the world’s kindest blurb.

Once I had this rave, I approached other writers — mostly friends and friends of friends — and got more. I emailed Dr. Drew Pinsky, whom I’d come to know from interviewing him for magazine stories, and he loved the book so much that he called “its portrayal of the experience of addiction and recovery as the most accurate of addiction I’ve come across.”

I dined out on that for a while.Next, the cover. While I’ve heard horror stories about authors being saddled with covers they hated, I was delighted by how open my publisher was to working with me on the cover. They showed me a few options and allowed me to pick my favorite.

Then Your Book Comes Out — and Crickets

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.”– Eliza Tabor

The most shocking moment in a first-time author’s journey is often the release.

They’ve usually spent over a year waiting for this moment.

They’ve probably spent roughly half their time since they first got the idea to write a book thinking it’s going to be the world’s biggest hit and the other half wondering who the hell they think they are writing a book.

Yes, they had self-doubt but who would commit to sitting in front of a computer pouring out roughly 300 pages if they didn’t secretly fantasize that their book would be a sensation?

They’ve heard that lives tend not to change overnight, that they’re probably not going to get famous, that most first time authors are terribly disappointed.

They all think, It’s going to be different for me.And yet the silence once it’s released, for most of us, is deafening. I felt that way, even though I got a flurry of press. It just doesn’t seem like enough compared to some other author’s experience.

I remember once reading a tweet from Joel Stein that said something along the lines of how having a book come out is just like having a movie come out — except that no one cares.I have an author friend who says, “I always feel so sorry for people the week their book comes out.”

Here’s why: everyone is congratulating you so you feel like you should be ecstatic but really you’re constantly hitting refresh on Amazon and trying not to take it personally when someone who can’t spell calls your book unreadable on that very same site.

You’re bombarded by people asking how your book is doing and you have no idea what to tell them.You have your big launch party or reading and while all your friends and maybe even some strangers show up, you silently note who doesn’t buy the book, failing to feel grateful for the fact that, well, they showed up.

You stew over the fact that your publicist does not seem to be doing for you what you’re positive she did for that other author you know.

And speaking of your publishing house, they are strangely silent during this entire period. Where did they go?And why on earth, if this is so horrific, would anyone go through this?

Answer: They’re not anymore. Most of us have turned to self-publishing. And I, for one, find that very exciting. Here’s why.

Making Your Self-Published Book a Bestseller Isn’t As Hard As You Think

“Sometimes, inexplicably, things are just easy” — Anonymous

It’s actually an extremely simple process. Yes, it requires some work. Does it require as much work as traditional publishing detailed above?

Hell, no.

There are three main things to focus on if you want your self-published book to be a best-seller:

1) An Advanced Reader Team

2) Amazon categories

3) Doing a stealth — and then a big — release.Let’s take these one at a time.

The Advanced Reader Team is your most important asset. It’s a group of people — in a perfect world, about 100 of them; in the real world, let’s say 20 — who have agreed to read your book in advance and give it an Amazon (and ideally also a GoodReads) review.

Who are these people? They can’t be your family members or good friends. Amazon doesn’t like that and will remove reviews they think are biased. (It happened to a friend of mine reviewing my book; she really did love my book and we happened to be friends so Amazon notified her that they were removing it. How did Amazon know we were friends? We still have no idea.)

So find people who support you and your work and then nurture and love them into wanting to read and review your book.

Keep in mind that asking someone to read your book is a big deal but also keep in mind that you can’t PAY them to review it. (Amazon also doesn’t like — er, allow — that.) So nurture and love them however feels right…maybe you give them access to a free course or send them love notes. I don’t care; the point is that you want them to purchase and review your book on Amazon BEFORE you announce the book release to the public.

That way, once the book is “officially” available, it already has lovely reviews and the Amazon algorithm has kicked in and the book is therefore being recommended to people who would be interested in it.

Now, about those categories. As of this writing, Amazon only offers you the opportunity, when you’re uploading your book, to select three of them. But there’s a way around that! All you have to do (again, as of now…in the wacky world of Amazon, things can change at any time) is contact Amazon and add extra categories…up to 10. If you’ve selected the right categories for your book and have an Advanced Reader Team doing its job, you have a great chance of hitting the top of those category lists.

And then there’s the stealth and then big release. I already alluded to this when I said get those reviews up before you tell the world about your book. But here’s the other thing: when you tell the world, TELL THE WORLD. I highly recommend doing the following:

1) Taking your best quotes and making them into social media friendly posts on Canva.

2) Making a book trailer using the Clips app.

3) Contacting book bloggers about reviewing or writing about your book.

4) Reaching out to podcasters about coming on as a guest.

5) Sending out release specific emails to your newsletter list.

6) Holding an event — either at a bookstore, at an institution, at a friend’s house, in a restaurant or even just on your Facebook page.

7) Reaching out to influencers to promote it.

These are just seven suggestions of about a million that I’ve tried. And I’m willing to share that million with you. Yes, it’s true!

For more information about me and my company, Light Hustle Publishing, click here