Best Selling or Best Written?

In one of Robert Kiyosaki's books he talks about meeting a journalist in Tokyo. When she asked him how to become a bestselling author his advise was to take a job as a salesperson. She was horrified at the suggestion saying she wanted to write not sell. Robert pointed out that he has never been accused of being a best writing author, he was a best selling author.

While there are many best selling books which have additional value the idea that bestsellers are not the best written books is probably correct. I personally don't believe that the only people who can write best sellers are salespeople but I do think you need to learn similar skills to write and market your book.

Why would learning sales skills help you become a better writer? Sales is all about learning to read people. You learn to use language to explain, convince and motivate. Proper sales is not about pressure, lies or manipulation although there are still some people who still think selling is all about tricking people into buying things they don't need or want, unfortunately. There are others who think that you need "the gift of the gab", Australian slang for being able to talk a lot, to be a good salesperson but the reality is that you need to be very good at listening to the words that are said and how congruent they are with the body language being displayed.

Bestseller status comes from the marketing efforts of the publisher and the author (that's you) and it doesn't matter if the books are separated into fiction or best sellers by genre. Best sellers can be serious hardbacks or mass market paperbacks, fiction, factual or historic. Good marketing is the key and that requires similar skills to salespeople.

If you study people and are able record that to create real characters, make their behaviour consistent your stories come alive. These are the things which make your stories roll along and be believable. This is something that most writers don't seem to understand. There are some authors who think they can stay away from people and then write stories about them. This is like writing out a set of instructions on how to play golf without ever having picked up a set of clubs or even watched the game on TV.

That is the key to writing best types of bestseller. It's not about using great grammar, outstanding wording or other clever tricks. Save them for your thesis for your PHD. Oddly enough it is also the secret to getting published. No self respecting Publisher has any interest in publishing a book which is unlikely to sell. Publishing is an expensive business, they will not waste money on a outside chance. If your book can't hit the mass market bestseller lists then they are unlikely to pick it up.

What makes a best seller? Your story has to flow and draw the reader in. For me and probably you, if the discussions I have had with other avid readers holds for you as well, a good story keeps you so engrossed that the words become like a movie in your head. In the book Misery the captive author describes himself as "falling into the page" which I think is an excellent description. That's what happens to me, same for you?

I have never had this experience when writing but I have no trouble imagining what it is like. The trick is to just write furiously, don't stop to spell check or correct the grammar, there will be plenty of time to make the corrections later, just get the story down on paper or on the screen and save as you go.

Your book can be a bestseller even if it isn't perfect, it will probably never be perfect so don't delay submitting it. What it does have to do is to engage the reader on at least one level so they keep engrossed in your writing. Focus your efforts on writing a good story and let the spelling and grammar fall where they may until you have finished it.

The other thing you need to do is write lots and lots. Have a look at the posts on my www.bearlybooks.com website, most of them are reasonably long. A typical post would be around 300 words, I seem to be a bit wordy when I get a head of steam up and have trouble being concise. This article is kind of proof of that last statement.

Since the site was started I think I have probably written enough posts to have written a novel. But I have also written posts and articles for other sites, put comments on other peoples blogs, written some manuals, done a bunch of coding on this and other websites so I guess that I have written possibly another small novel in that time as well if you just look at the number of words I have committed to the screen.

Mybey I should have just written the novel by concentrating on one area. I doubt that what I write is of any academic value but it doesn't have to be, it has to communicate and I see no reason why you can't do the same. You only improve any skill by practise, writing is no exception.

In the world of of self-development they say that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, at first. Don't be afraid to write badly as the practice will help you get better. Remember there is always time to edit after you're done so write it as badly as you need to get it all down.

Get writing. You have a best seller inside you that is screaming to get out, just release it.