What makes a book sell?

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

This is a topic Ive been thinking about for a long time..... what makes a book sell??? I see great authors like Brandon Sanderson on the one hand who sell well enough but never achieve the literally astounding successes that useless claptrap authors like Christopher Paolini (the author of Eragon), Stephenie Mayer (Twilight) and EL James (Fifty Shades of Grey) achieve. These useless books with literally inaccurate content, poorly fleshed out characters and highly inconsistent magic systems (Im looking at you Eragon) literally have millions of millions of readers rooting for them, movies made on them etc while far better authors take years to achieve a little limelight.

 

 

Brandon was first published in 2005 after he had written/partially written literally 7-8 books and was pretty much feeling pessimistic about the industry while Christopher Paolini is published in his first attempt and sells millions of books. Christopher hacked from the Lord of Rings, Star Wars and pretty much many books out there, his magic system is inconsistent with the rules he himself made, his battle scenes supremely inaccurate(look at antishurtugal.com for more details), his heroes are typical Gary Stu characters with pretty much perfect everything. Yet he sits on the same platform as Brandon, posing himself as a self alleged "Expert" on dragons in that convention.(Brandon has posted it on his site.) 

 

Stephenie Mayer's novels made me vomit...... I have no idea how i managed to read through the first one..... it could be summarized as "Oh Edward you look sexy,you have beautiful eyes, face, tall, sparkle in the sunlight (i'm not joking), possess infinite strength, immortal and everything else that some obsessed girl could possibly think of." The plot literally falls apart, and there are huge inconsistencies. The secondary characters have very little to nearly no role in the story of this poor, boy obsessed girl.

 

You can understand how bad Fifty Shades of Grey is when you realise it is a rehashed version of a Twilight fanfic. Here she replaces vampires with very bad sex. The relationship is downright unhealthy with no semblance of a life outside sex. Also there are even rape scenes in Fifty Shades(Read this link http://www.crushable.com/2012/07/30/entertainment/fifty-shades-of-grey-sexual-assault-bdsm-603/)

 

Other popular novels include Harry Potter, which i found to be good but not worthy of the insane popularity it received, The Hunger Games (tolerable) etc.

 

To get back to the main topic, what quality in these books made these books sell???? Why does Brandon not sell as well???? Why have I never seen even one of Brandon's books in hard copy in my local bookstores or libraries(I live in India) while I find multiple copies of all of the above?????   

 

 

[bartbug he/him]

I think a big part of it is luck, and marketability. Recently, Brandon wrote Steelheart, and I'm pretty sure it has achieved the largest popularity and media attention from any of his books, just because it happens to be dystopian YA. Steelheart's good, because it is Brandon, but at the same time it is also his worst published book (in my opinion). The biggest problem is that Brandon does not write YA, as many of those other authors do.

Also, sex sells, and Brandon does not write sex.

Edited December 5, 2013 by bartbug

[name_here]

Numerous and complicated reasons that no one actually understands, or publishers would be much, much richer.

 

In the specific case of Brandon as opposed to most of the other writers, you need to realize that SciFi/Fantasy is apparently not a very large market if bookstore shelves are anything to go by. A lot more shelf space is dedicated to romance, modern thrillers, and mystery. So it generally doesn't get as much attention. Eragon was Fantasy, but the writer's parents owned a publishing company.

 

Also, controversy gets attention, which sells books. So if there's a bunch of people vocally complaining about a book, especially if it is part of a moral panic, people who would otherwise never have noticed it might buy it. Any book that somehow manages to make the news outside of a review section is going to sell well.

 

Lastly, blind luck is a significant part. A vast majority of hugely successful and quality books gathered numerous rejection letters because the publishers did not see potential in them and they get a lot of submissions. Once they do get published, they sit on the shelves besides a bunch of other books, and people simply do not have the time or money to buy everything with an interesting cover and plot summary. My house contains an outlandish number of books, but I've passed up many more SF/F books than I've actually purchased and read.

[Triumvirate he/him]

...while far better authors take years to achieve a little limelight.

Ha.  Clever little pun there.

 

On-topic, I wonder this myself quite ardently, as my wife (and somewhat secretly myself) are considering becoming authors (join the club!), and I harbor significant fears that it will not work out.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Triumvirate

[Moogle]

I imagine it's because most people don't like Brandon's work, or fantasy in general. It is weird to me, but some people just don't like reading thousand page books. There's nothing any author can do about that, really. The market for people who like erotica (Fifty Shades) is much bigger than that for fantasy. Paolini is something of an exception here, but his success can be explained from subject matter (lots of people like dragons) and the fact that his parents are publishers.

[ADIMORTIS he/him]

As a fellow Indian , I can completly understand your situatio about not having a single Sanderson book in bookstores.

His only books that can be found are his WoT works. While those are good his other works are never to be found.Not even a single one.

Nor can one find Scott Lynch ,Pat Rothfuss or Brent Weeks... The only books belonging to these authors nearby are mine which had to be ordered online..and they are pretty costly..

 

Seriously worried about getting WoR on time..

 

And now circling back to the topic at hand..

 

Well in my opinion Sanderson's books don't sell as much (comparing to HP and its kin) is the fact that you can't actually classify his books as YA (except Steelheart). I found that the YA genre was redefined with the coming of HP with people of all ages reading it. Other books rose in it's wake and were basking in its popularity. While I do like Paolini's work (except for the last book). I sincerely doubt that if it had been released before HP it would have reached to a stage of popularity it has now.

 

As for Fifty shades all I can say is that Sex sells...

 

And now , back to waiting for WoR...

(Last draft is on 99% now )

[firstRainbowRose she/her]

Not going to comment on selling, but I did want to say if you're worried about receiving your book on time contact Wellers Books once they start offering books.  They ship international, the books are signed and numbered, and they do the best they can to get the book to you on, or very close to, the release date. 

[Aether he/him]

While I do like Paolini's work (except for the last book). I sincerely doubt that if it had been released before HP it would have reached to a stage of popularity it has now.

Really? The last book? I found it to be the stronger of the four. The first was just plain bad, the second one wasn't much better but ridiculously pretentious, the third one was OK and the fourth one... I won't give it too high of a praise, but I liked the last half, even if his visit to dragon-isle (or whatnot) was a bit contrived. (seriously, a dragon heart in a human sized armour...?)

Edited December 6, 2013 by Aether

[Ete'ni]

Oh... I don't know. I can just tell one thing: translating them into another language is torture. I speak out of experience. BS uses a unique language which cannot be fully adopted to other system, while HP books have more simple structure.

 

And Twilight is... Well, you understand that teenage girls and other long for overromantic things? the more hormon drive the better.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Ete'ni

[Satsuoni he/him]

Translation depends on book very much. Russian translation of the Last Empire (the only one there is) is atrocious! (Allomantic lead contains up to 10% of lead ) Harry potter is ok. And Xanth books might as well have been rewritten from scratch.

 

As an aside, I cannot stop humming the title of this thread to the rhythm of Ylvis: "But there is one thing we'll never know~ What makes a book sell?"

[Claincy he/him]

Translation depends on book very much. Russian translation of the Last Empire (the only one there is) is atrocious! (Allomantic lead contains up to 10% of lead ) Harry potter is ok. And Xanth books might as well have been rewritten from scratch.

Someone translated Xanth books into another language?! That just seems... kind of pointless really. Books almost based around puns, yeaaaah, you'd need to essentially rewrite the whole thing.

[Satsuoni he/him]

Someone translated Xanth books into another language?! That just seems... kind of pointless really. Books almost based around puns, yeaaaah, you'd need to essentially rewrite the whole thing.

They are... surprisingly not bad, actually. And they retained the names... for main characters... mostly...

[Claincy he/him]

They are... surprisingly not bad, actually. And they retained the names... for main characters... mostly...

Huh, impressive. That must have taken a lot of work.

[Ete'ni]

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Edited June 11, 2014 by Ete'ni

[Satsuoni he/him]

Hm... I am not very good at translating, since I don't know word equivalents well, but let me see...

Pewter in Russian is Pewter ( that is, it is a borrowed word that sounds the same), or table tin in older parlance...Пьютерук? Sorry, I am drawing a blank here.

Thug's only translation seems to be "bandit", which is not quite right in this context...

Probably the closest I could get would be "Качок".

[Ete'ni]

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Edited June 11, 2014 by Ete'ni

[Satsuoni he/him]

"громила" would work. What about Brute (Feruchemical pewter)? And yes, I have never seen the word for pewter before either, it seems very niche. I think most people simply call it tin or tin alloy, like in tin soldier.

[Ete'ni]

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Edited June 11, 2014 by Ete'ni

[king of nowhere]

an analogous question came to me and helped me find the answer: why many more people prefer to eat at mcdonalds than get real food?

simple answer: because most people don't appreciate real food. when they chew, they don't pay much attention to it; they are probably engrossed in conversation or watching tv. they'd rather take something coontaining lots of fat and that don't require much effort. mcdonalds is the culinary equivalent of pure, indiluted fanservice. And it sells, even if everyone with good tastes would never eat there.

 

So, we appreciate sanderson for his good writing. for his detailed worldbuilding. for the accuracy of his magic system. For the fine details of the plot. A whole forum of people analyzing his books maniacally, and no one ever found any real inconsistency or plot hole. it is a pleasure to reread a sanderson's book a second time and notice all the subtle hints that you missed the first time. like figuring out when a viewpoint character is being allomantically inflluenced.

but 90% of readers do not notice this. they don't care if the world is well built; they won't notice anyway. they don't care for plot holes and inconsistencies: they don't pay enough attention to see them. they don't appreciate the subtle forshadowing when rereading: they don't reread in the first place. they pick a book, read it superficially, then pick another book. possibly not too long, they doon't want to spend effort remembering the characters.

To go back with the food metaphora, we may all praise sanderson for his skill in dosing the pepper just right in the pasta alla carbonara, and we may wonder why other people don't join us in praising him. But those people won't appreciate the right amount of pepper. they won't even notice if there is pepper or not, they're not trying to notice, and they aren't intersted in noticing it anyway.

In italy we have a saying: "to give pearls to pigs", meaning that the people who see something of value are not capable of appreciating it.

 

Having understood this, we can feel superior. Now we all can go at the library with our backs straight, and if we see lower books sell more than sanderson, we can look at people buying them with disdain, and feel confident in our superiority over those ignorant barbarians. And it's ok if those books will sell more than sanderson. the barbarians eventually conquered rome, but they were no less barbarians for it.

And if people look down on us and call us nerds, we will bear that name proudly. For the alternative to being a nerd is to be an ignorant barbarian, and so we'd rather be nerds. People think nerds are social outcasts and avoid them, but we're fine that way. We certainly don't want to hang up with ignornat barbarians.

 

So, long story short: for a book to sell, it must have a passable plot, plenty of fanservice, and people must talk about it. then there's luck. a really good plot don't matter so much because most reader don't really care about it.

 

Note: I hope I'm not sounding too much like a madman. Sometimes I start writing and then I become creative and let myself be carried away.

[Ete'ni]

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Edited June 10, 2014 by Ete'ni

[Iredomi]

I agree with the comparison you are making king as many make the same comparison with pop music and fast food. Still Sanderson does concentrate on strange things if you think about it . Most literary authors the fine chefs of writing might i say concentrate a lot on prose, theme and feeling, whilst the novelists producing fast food concentrate on fanservice things they may not know this or intend it . Brandon is seemingly stuck in a different niche entirely which is interesting though he does tap into both things. But i guess that is the way with a lot of genre writers. Brandon has am emphasis on plot a lot literary writers don't which is why i read his books a lot more than theirs but his prose is functional interesting at times but can sometimes be too telly . I want to experience the book not be told stuff but it works for him more than others because of his strong handle on plot and setting. Anyway wilt i disagree with is that people a lesser for reading fast food stories. People come to what they like through many paths and not all things are so simply put into the categories. I may see a lady gaga song as being shallow and devoid

of meaning but that doesn't make anyone with tin opposite opinion wrong. Of course i did feel like you were being somewhat hyperbolic in your post so i should probably end it there. All errors and unclear sentences and thoughts be blamed on lethargy and my tiny smart or not so smart phone.

Oh and Brandon is pretty freaking awesome isn't he.

Edit: i should fix all the weird predictive errors in this but um oh yeah ete you basically said what i was trying to say in a much more concise and understandable way.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Iredomi

[Aether he/him]

an analogous question came to me and helped me find the answer: why many more people prefer to eat at mcdonalds than get real food?

simple answer: because most people don't appreciate real food. when they chew, they don't pay much attention to it; they are probably engrossed in conversation or watching tv. they'd rather take something coontaining lots of fat and that don't require much effort. mcdonalds is the culinary equivalent of pure, indiluted fanservice. And it sells, even if everyone with good tastes would never eat there.

 

So, we appreciate sanderson for his good writing. for his detailed worldbuilding. for the accuracy of his magic system. For the fine details of the plot. A whole forum of people analyzing his books maniacally, and no one ever found any real inconsistency or plot hole. it is a pleasure to reread a sanderson's book a second time and notice all the subtle hints that you missed the first time. like figuring out when a viewpoint character is being allomantically inflluenced.

but 90% of readers do not notice this. they don't care if the world is well built; they won't notice anyway. they don't care for plot holes and inconsistencies: they don't pay enough attention to see them. they don't appreciate the subtle forshadowing when rereading: they don't reread in the first place. they pick a book, read it superficially, then pick another book. possibly not too long, they doon't want to spend effort remembering the characters.

To go back with the food metaphora, we may all praise sanderson for his skill in dosing the pepper just right in the pasta alla carbonara, and we may wonder why other people don't join us in praising him. But those people won't appreciate the right amount of pepper. they won't even notice if there is pepper or not, they're not trying to notice, and they aren't intersted in noticing it anyway.

In italy we have a saying: "to give pearls to pigs", meaning that the people who see something of value are not capable of appreciating it.

 

Having understood this, we can feel superior. Now we all can go at the library with our backs straight, and if we see lower books sell more than sanderson, we can look at people buying them with disdain, and feel confident in our superiority over those ignorant barbarians. And it's ok if those books will sell more than sanderson. the barbarians eventually conquered rome, but they were no less barbarians for it.

And if people look down on us and call us nerds, we will bear that name proudly. For the alternative to being a nerd is to be an ignorant barbarian, and so we'd rather be nerds. People think nerds are social outcasts and avoid them, but we're fine that way. We certainly don't want to hang up with ignornat barbarians.

 

So, long story short: for a book to sell, it must have a passable plot, plenty of fanservice, and people must talk about it. then there's luck. a really good plot don't matter so much because most reader don't really care about it.

 

Note: I hope I'm not sounding too much like a madman. Sometimes I start writing and then I become creative and let myself be carried away.

Unfortunately, I agree with you, at least partially. Ete'ni has a point though. We shouldn't be arrogant for having been given the chance to discover something others have not. But we do live in a culture of mass consumption. There are people who just prefer to digest fast-foods without ever thinking that there might be something better out there, and who prove impervious to any attempt at expanding their palate.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Aether

[Swimmingly he/him]

Unfortunately, I agree with you, at least partially. Ete'ni has a point though. We shouldn't be arrogant for having been given the chance to discover something others have not. But we do live in a culture of mass consumption. There are people who just prefer to digest fast-foods without ever thinking that there might be something better out there, and who prove impervious to any attempt at expanding their palate.

Always consume books three times: Once for the pleasure, once for the plot, characters, details, setting, etc., and once lightly braised and brushed with hot sauce, caramelized onions optional.

[Aether he/him]

Always consume books three times: Once for the pleasure, once for the plot, characters, details, setting, etc., and once lightly braised and brushed with hot sauce, caramelized onions optional.

Swimmingly, you are quickly becoming the one on this forum to whom I've handed out the most up-votes. And that is all the while I'm secretly trying not to, as I've just almost caught up to you! I should really fry (and eat) you!

Edited December 7, 2013 by Aether

[king of nowhere]

Well, I see that many people took my comment way more seriously than it was intended.

I certainly wasn't suggesting that we really look down on other people, I was vastly exaggerating my point for the sake of joke. But unfortunately it appears the couple of emoticons that I put there weren't enough to convey that message.

 

However, the basis of the argument stands: we are literary entenders, other people are mass consumers and don't have refined tastes. Of course it don't mean we are better than them, although if may be suggested that we are better readers. But it is normal that people have a few things they deeply care about, over which they are entenders, and other things they care less about, over which they are mass consumers (thank you aether for the term).

For example, while I pride myself of my literary tastes and attention to details, I freely admit that I'm an "ignorant barbarbarian"  when it comes to music, or clothing, or many other things. So no arrogance intended. We are better entenders than them at literature (or at least fantasy literature), they are better entennders at other things.

 

EDIT: Farthermore, I don't think people can be classified as entenders or ignorant depending on what they like. they are classified depending on what they notice. people don't have to like brandon to be entenders. they have to recognize that he puts lots of effort into consistent worldbuilding and plotting. if they can see it, and still don't care about it and prefer other stuff, it's a perfectly legitimate opinion. to use again the food metaphor, you're not a gourmet if you insist a certain spice goes on a certain preparation, just because other gourmets insist that it does. you're an entender if you can tell whether that minor, almost unnoticeable spice is there or not. If you notice it, bust still prefer it not to be there, it's just a matter of personal taste

Edited December 7, 2013 by king of nowhere