I wish there was one, a turn-the-crank algorithm that allows me to produce one every time I write.  I, of course, can’t claim to have written one, no matter what definition you use.  Why am I qualified to write this then?  Because I read a lot, even books considered “bestsellers” (Flash Boys was the last one, but that’s non-fiction.)  I can’t discover a formula.  Take the genres I write in.  I’ve read much better mysteries than Gone Girl, for example.  What made that a “bestseller”?  Hype maybe, but when you compare to other bestsellers, it’s hard to determine some commonality.  Why?

First, what do I mean by bestseller?  It’s a bit like porn, I suppose…I usually know one when I see it (although, like the case of Gone Girl, I just have to take other people’s word).  To Kill a Mockingbird, the author’s first and only book, is still a bestseller; so is The Hunt for Red October (although less so).  So bestseller has something to do with number of copies sold (or checked out in public libraries).  It probably has little to do with the NY Times Book Review, though, which would rank Clancy higher than Harper Lee due more to the rate of sales, not the total number of books sold.  Presumably Lee’s Mockingbird will still be popular long after Collins’ Mockingjay goes the way of all badly written sci-fi schlock; the first book has staying power, whereas the Times emphasizes quick returns for publishers (why not?  They’re a publisher!).

What commonality can I find for Brown’s Da Vinci Code, Rowling’s Harry Potter, and James’ Fifty Shades?  They sold an incredible number of copies, so they’re probably bestsellers by the Times’ or anyone else’s definition.  Are they any good?  I listed them in order of the fun I had reading them.  Bestsellers have a fad component, often enjoying a snowball effect as readers jump on the proverbial bandwagon.  The books I listed in this paragraph have no staying power.  I didn’t even read much of the third one, but have listened to the opinions from people whose opinions I value.  All these books represent authors winning a lottery (more on this later) and have no clear nexus with quality.

In fact, just those three books show that there can be no formula!  Add to them To Kill a Mockingbird and a few others, like Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, and it’s easy to make the case that anyone claiming to have a formula is drinking heavily, smoking hashish, or listening to ET transmissions through his dental work…or all the above.  There’s little intersection between genres and plots.  You can choose a number of books to prove your formula; I’ll always find a number that will disprove it.

Readers jumping on an author’s bandwagon in a short period of time please the hell out of the publisher who optioned the book; I’d wager that no publisher really understands what’s going on, though.  They and their gatekeeping agents often think they do, but they don’t.  An obscure publisher picked up Hunt for Red October—all who passed on it lived to regret their actions, I’m sure.  Rowling had initial difficulties finding a publisher too.  Smart publishers should know readers’ tastes aren’t predictable, period; there are few smart publishers left.

In other words, if you’re a writer, there’s no silver bullet that guarantees a bestselling novel, no matter what “the experts” tell you.  And, if you’re a publisher, your damn guess is as good as mine about predicting the next bestseller.  I came to that conclusion many years ago in a round-about way: I analyzed what I liked to read and set out to go one better.  Most of my novels and short stories have “social content” as background, at least.  Most books I mentioned above don’t.  Maybe the seagull has a good perspective on life and living; Lee’s story is about racial injustice and the destruction of innocence.  The remainder are entertaining fluff with no great messages.  Maybe bestsellers trend to fluffiness now, words beaten like egg whites to make macaroons for the masses.

I write genre fiction.  I refuse to accept that genre fiction has to be fluffy.  It can be just as meaty as “literary fiction,” that meaningless doggerel used to label books snooty critics are too lazy to categorize.  Mockingbird, often called literary fiction, is just an early example of a legal thriller or mystery.  It’s still profound.  Genre fiction books, if you look outside erotica and romance, fantasy and horror, can be profound.  (I’m guessing books in those genres can be too, but I don’t read them much.)

I’m not self-aggrandizing enough to claim my genre fiction is profound, but I do treat profound themes.   For example, my most recently released mystery, The Collector, mixes art theft (the lesser social problem associated with some people’s desire to own a masterpiece that no one else can view) and the dark practices of sex trafficking, prostitution, porn, and snuff killings (crimes many of us don’t like to admit exist).  Some genre fiction bestsellers do share the commonality of dealing with socially relevant themes, but I’ve given examples to show that that’s not a silver bullet either.  And dealing with socially relevant topics doesn’t seem to help my PR and marketing results.

On the contrary, some kind readers (?) have told me that no one wants to hear about these issues, so why can’t I just write a good, standard mystery or thriller and skip the social content (some have called this “bleeding heart whining”)?  Is it possible that that’s the silver bullet instead?  You can certainly find bestsellers that support that claim too.  You have fluffy bestsellers; you have profound ones.  The best course of action for a writer?  Analyze what you like to read in one or two genres, and try to do better than that.  Fluff isn’t necessarily bad—I can eat cotton candy.  Serious stuff isn’t bad either—I can eat steak.  Maybe you’ll decide to do both, using one pen name for fluff and other for serious stuff.  Whatever works for you.

But don’t look for silver bullets for that bestselling novel status, whatever that means to you.  Writing success, however you define it, is like winning the lottery.  You have to participate to win, but your chances of winning are slim nowadays (Harper Lee had a lot less competition, you know—so did Clancy).  I can live with that; you should too.  And if you’re a true writer, you’ll soon realize that you’re having too much fun to stop.  That realization is true writing success.

In libris libertas….

 

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