Can you really ‘manufacture’ a bestseller? The three building blocks no bestseller can be without
For any publisher the thirst to find bestsellers, and then nurture those bestsellers longer term into meaningful brands, is a never ending cycle of optimism - always with optimism in the first instance, otherwise why begin - followed by any number of mixed emotions, all blended in with a generous dollop of hard, hard work. But across the industry as a whole, you can apply the 80-20 rule almost unilaterally, meaning that 80% of the success of a business comes from 20% of its output. Or in other words 80% of what we all do isn’t worth all the running that goes hand in hand with it, if you were to assess it in purely commercial terms of course. Thats a lot of books that don’t become bestsellers. As a commercial consultant I spend a lot of my time looking at the top 20% of effective books and brands within businesses, and helping them make that 20% run faster and harder, delivering even greater returns for my clients. Within that I’m often asked to explain ‘why do you think this was such a bestseller’ while this book, on the other hand, was not? Of course if I really had the answer to that question I’d be sunning myself in the bahamas, richer than croesus on the proceeds from selling my very own ludicrously successful publishing business. That wonderful vision aside, it had got me thinking more about the process of ‘building a bestseller’ and what that entails. At the end of the day some bestselling books arrive by luck more than judgement, but for me there’s also an undeniable and replicable process to ensure that a book has the clearest pathway to success. I’ve recently partnered with Bookmachine - the global community for book publishing professionals - and have pulled together a 6 module course called ‘Build a bestseller every time’. It’s free to all +CAMPUS members and takes you step by step through the lifecycle of a bestseller, from acquisition through to sustaining the longer term momentum of a bestseller or brand. Within that process three fundamentals stood out for me, that in my experience, no bestseller can do without:
Consumer first, consumer last - keeping the consumer at the heart of your campaign, from acquisition through to beyond publication is the guiding principle for any successful book. Who your audience is, where they shop, what they read, where they live, essentially who they are and what they want guides every action and decision throughout the process. Do I need X retailer to support this book…..well, does your audience shop with that retailer? How important is having an audiobook for this title…well is your target consumer typically a heavy audio book consumer? All bestsellers keep audience at the heart of their thinking from day one to the last, and effectively doing so is hugely rewarding in terms of your time and energy investment as you work through your campaign.
Messaging - when you acquire a book, and ink that deal, it’s a great moment. Everyones happy, and you’re at peak optimism - you’ve just signed your next guaranteed bestseller! However many months down the line you’re looking at how to package and position this book and thinking, what’s was the USP again? What’s the message here? We’ve all been there. Bestsellers always understand what their proposition is, what will bring in the audience, what jacket will draw in the consumer, and what tagline or key metadata search term will guide the consumer frictionlessly from browse to buy. The majority of book buying consumers don’t have high dwell time to make decisions, they want to know what they’re buying, why they’re buying and they want that information now. Giving them what they want is half the battle.
Layering discoverability - discoverability became a buzzword sometime ago for book publishing as the power of simply putting a book on a bookshop table became less effective. All bestsellers need a blend of discoverability levers, whether thats promotion with the right retail partner, to specific PR exposure thats plugged in to your target consumer. The real key to success however is ensuring the timing of these individual actions are co-ordinated. Think tv sofa time for your author, combined with a greater investment in social advertising, alongside a stand out price with your key retailer all running concurrently. Layering your activities, one on top of the other, hugely amplifies the effectiveness of each action in isolation making the campaign greater than the sum of its parts. In a noisy world where we’re bombarded by businesses with spends far outweighing even the deepest of publishing pockets this approach gets your book a much greater level of audience cut through and end sales.
If you’d like to understand how to ‘Build a bestseller every time’ join Bookmachine now, and take my course for FREE. You can also see the introduction to the course here to learn more
Andrew Sauerwine is the founder of The Commercial Publishing Consultancy which helps individuals, teams and businesses across the books industry to sell smarter and grow faster. If you’d like to get in contact direct to discuss how I can help your business please contact me on andrew@workwithcpc.co.uk.