How to Write a Bestseller: The DNA

Bestseller-DNA
You might have read about this computer program, which after scanning 20,000 books could predict with eighty-four percent accuracy a book’s success.  The authors of The Bestseller Code mined the texts of 20,000 novels, published over the past 30 years.  
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Scientists had developed an algorithm which analyses a book and predict whether or not it will be a commercial success.  A technique, called statistical stylometry, which mathematically examines the use of words and grammar, was found to be “surprisingly effective” in determining how popular a book would become.
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Which Book Topics and Trends are Promising?
More important than the genre where the topics of:

  • Human Closeness (not necessarily romance)
  • Relationships / Marriage
  • Work / Technology

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Genre Doesn’t Predict Success.
The old saying: “Write Romance or Mystery, stay away from Memoir or Western if you want to land a bestseller” seems to be more or less a myth when you look at bestseller lists.  Think Stephen King, who writes horror, Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain, a M/M romance, or Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.  Then there is the erotic genre with 50 Shades of Grey, Harry Potter books, which are classified as fantasy.  Thumbing through bestseller lists shows a very wide genre-variety.  Lets look at two examples of “Human Closeness” in famous writers’ bestselling books:
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Danielle Steel:
“With glamorous tales of love and heartbreak she has captivated legions of book buyers” wrote the Washington Post once.  And Danielle Steel explains in an interview: “I write about the struggles, defeats and victories we all experience in a wide variety of situations, and I think people get caught up in the stories and identify with them and the characters because they see themselves in them.  And often, readers find hope in what I write, that they, too, will survive whatever they’re going through.
Almost 150 books, and an estimated 800 million readers worldwide, she has also written children’s books, lyrics and poetry – all while mothering 9 (in words: nine) children.  She is very disciplined, and writes in long hour stretches.
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Jodi Picoult:
Her last eight books were all number one on the NYT bestseller list. Human closeness can be found for example in her book Small Great Things, when she tackles the profoundly challenging yet essential concerns of our time: prejudice, race, and justice, but also parental inadequacy and children in peril.
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What About Book Series?
Many serialized books are in bestseller lists, which signals that this is what people like to read.  Series can be connected in different ways: the setting, theme, characters, profession, or a common element.  Publish your series of novels in fast succession!  Publishers aren’t interested in waiting five years for a sequel.  Nor are Amazon readers…
Barbara Freethy wrote: “Is there anything better than stumbling on the first book of a series, falling in love with the writing, the characters, or the story world, and then realizing that there will be many more stories set in that world?  There are some series I wish would never end.  The characters have become incredibly real to me, and it’s almost as if the world actually exists outside of the books!  One of the fun things about creating a connected series is being able to develop a bigger story arc over the entire series.”
And J.A. Konrath wrote in his recent blog:  “Series are a very good way to establish your name”.
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Writing Style.
Long sentences are rare in bestsellers – James Joyce might get away with it, but a newbie probably won’t.  And keep your title short too.  Use a “series title”.  A series title builds a ‘brand’.
Looking at The Da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey shows that they are almost exactly matched in terms of fast and slow moments in their pacing.  Most super-bestsellers have symmetrical pacing, so-called page-turners.  Bestsellers usually have sex scenes around halfway through.

J.A. Konrath: “If you read a romance novel, you get the first kiss or sex scene at a third or halfway in, which drives the plot curve that follows: will they get together?  And successful erotic writers know that.  But when you know the rules, break them.  You could have a sex scene on page one, like a modern crime writer will have a dead body in the first line.”
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What Else is Important?
Have you ever wondered how some books could reach bestseller status?
We are not talking about how to buy your way onto a bestseller list… It should be – according to Author Media: 

 

  • Certainly: excellent writing.
  • An essential internal factor is your author platform.
  • An external factor is luck.
  • And last, but not least: Write a book the world needs. To write a bestseller, often you have to say something unique that the world is ready to hear.
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The Secret Ingredients of a Bestseller.

A computer program found The Circle by Dave Eggers had the perfect DNA.  It is not a page-turner like The Da Vinci Code, because it was brief, it has a plot, but it also has big ideas – and three popular topics: technology, jobs and “human closeness”.

Amazing also the variety of reviews: 5 star 27% – 4 star 28% – 3 star 19% –
2 star 15% – 1 star by 11% of Amazon reviewers.  A book with bestseller DNA – but not THE bestseller, at least not in terms of millions of copies sold – yet.

As Harper Lee said: “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”
And Nora Roberts: “You have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done.”
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Helpful Reading:
How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author
by Janet Evanovich
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Write-Secrets-Bestselling-Author/dp/0312354282

The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression (Series)
by Angela Ackerman
https://www.amazon.ca/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression/dp/1475004958/

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