Finding Success as a Writer and Becoming a Bestselling Author

I'm Robert Stanek and today I'm writing about finding success as a writer and becoming a bestseller. In 1995, I attended a writer’s conference on Maui, hosted at the swanky Ritz-Carlton Kapalua. I’d just signed my first contract with Macmillan after years of trying to break in to publishing as a writer. Unlike most other attendees, I didn’t stay at the Ritz-Carlton—the hotel wasn’t something I could afford at the time. On a military salary, with a wife and toddler accompanying me, the best I could afford was a $79 a night room a few miles away, and the only reason I could afford to get to Maui in the first place was because I was stationed on Oahu, where I worked at the hush-hush NSA facility Edward Snowden made famous. 

As I wrote about in my post “How Betsy Mitchell, SheilaGilbert, Diana Gill, Beth Meacham, Jim Minz, Tom Doherty, and Other PublishingLegends Helped Launch My Writing Career” I’d previously received a number of encouraging responses to my debut novel, Keeper Martin’s Tale, and other works of fiction I’d written from Magic Lands to The Pieces of the Puzzle. It’d taken years to break in, but I’d finally managed it.

The conference was mostly about breaking in as a writer, with seminars on writing, getting agents, getting published and such. I felt a little like the cat who swallowed the canary, as I’d already managed to land a contract. It wasn’t something I’d say in the crowd I’d found myself in, many of whom were rather snobby and elitist, certain they were the best writer in the world and that their big break was just around the corner.

The conference went poorly and I ended up skipping big parts of it to spend time with my wife and son instead. Nonetheless, attendance taught me some valuable lessons, especially about how much I disliked snobby elitists. I also decided sitting around talking about writing for hours and hours was a colossal waste of time. Instead of talking about writing, I would instead just write.

And just write I did. My first book, Electronic Publishing Unleashed, was 1031 pages in print and I wrote 800 pages of it over a 4-month period while also working full-time in the military. The other 200 pages of the book were written by contributors, one of which was originally supposed to be the author of the book, but for one reason or another wasn’t able to produce what was required. Meanwhile, the acquisitions editor loved my work and kept expanding my role in the book until I was its author and the others were contributors.

Electronic Publishing Unleashed was published in September 1995 to great success and I signed a contract for a second book with Macmillan almost immediately. This book, Web Publishing Unleashed, was entirely my project from start to finish. The book was written to a tight schedule, and I wrote as much of it as I dared as quickly as I could: again 800 pages over a 4-month period. I hand selected the contributors to round out the content and the book was published in March 1996 to even bigger success than the first.

Meanwhile, I was at a crossroads in my military career. I’d earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees while in Hawaii and my commanders were recommending me for Officers Training School (OTS). As one of the most decorated soldiers in the unit and a frequently recognized top performer, I knew most of the top brass and they knew me. After OTS, I could have any job I wanted in the military. But then there was this writing thing.

You’d think my initial success in writing would make the answer an easy one. That second book was a blockbuster bestseller from the start. It was selling like snow cones during a heat wave. But the answer wasn’t an easy one. I’d written Electronic Publishing Unleashed as a work for hire, meaning I received no royalties, even though the book had over $2.5 million in sales. I’d written Web Publishing Unleashed as a royalty contract, but I had received a very low rate, even with an agent. How low? Less than 1/2 the industry standard rate, and then since I’d signed up with an agent, he was going to get 1/5^th of that.

Worse, I wouldn't receive my first royalty check for some time. It takes months for royalty payments to make it to authors. Books are published, shipped to stores. Stores pay based on sales, typically in 90 days or so, and in 90 days or so after getting paid, publishers pay authors. Still, my publisher loved my work and was in the process of signing me to three new contracts for FrontPage Unleashed, Peter Norton’s Guide to Java Programming and Web Publishing Unleashed Professional Reference Edition.

Thus, when I decided to leave the military in June 1996, I had no idea where I was going to go or even if I would actually ever get paid royalties. My wife, son and I ended up in a tiny apartment in Oregon. Still waiting for that first royalty payment and living off the dregs of advances, I wrote all three books in the apartment manager’s back room. The tiny apartment wasn’t big enough for writing, and my wife’s sister and her daughter had joined us in Oregon and moved in with us as well. Fortunately, the building manager graciously offered me the writing space, where I was cooped up 16 hours a day working to finish all those books.

How we ended up in Oregon? I'm not really sure myself. It is where Peter Norton was. Perhaps at the time I thought since I was writing Peter Norton’s Guide to Java Programming with Peter Norton he’d actually be working with me on the book. As it turned out, I never even got to meet Peter and his contribution to the book was nothing more than his name even though he received half the royalties. Peter Norton’s Guide to Java Programming was published in July 1996.

By this time, offers from other publishers were pouring in. One in particular that intrigued me was from PC Magazine. They were looking for a regular contributor to write technology articles about the Internet, the Web and related technologies. Exactly the space I worked in. I was up to my ears in books, but how could I or anyone else possibly turn down $1+ a word?! I took the offer and started writing regularly for the magazine.

After a few months in Oregon, the family and I moved on to Washington state, and the wait began anew for the first royalty check to reach me. However, I finally did have advances in hand for the three books I’d written. The publisher had made a special effort to get the payments to me and I’d also finalized two new contracts for FrontPage 97 Unleashed and Netscape ONE Developer’s Guide.

Those payments paid for a U-Haul and helped secure a larger apartment in Olympia, which was about 8 hours or so away from where we lived in Oregon. My wife’s sister and her daughter were still living with us, so we really needed the big space. While we were there, FrontPage Unleashed was published (September 1996) and I was already hard at work on the other books and writing for PC Magazine.

The new apartment was nice enough, but still not a home for my family, and still rather crowded with my wife's sister and her daughter living with my family. Nonetheless, we settled in and I worked. My writing space was in the master bedroom, so I had the difficult task of crawling out of bed to a chair a few feet away every morning where I wrote through the day and into the evening.

For months, the rapid succession of contracts, delays from the publisher, delays from my agents (I was with Studio B by this time) and other things had all been between me and ever getting paid my first royalty check for all the work I was doing. That check seemed some sort of myth by this time, so I was unsure if I'd ever receive it and rather certain I'd made a horrendous mistake by leaving the military.

Just about the time every cent we had ran out and our options were running out, a check finally arrived. The check was for the first royalty book I’d written, which had been published in March of that year. It was now September.

In the military, I barely made enough to get by. I’d finished college and earned my degrees only because my wife worked overtime to help pay the tuition. The check I was holding in my hand was two year’s military salary. I nearly fell over. It’d taken months to get to me, but there it was. Proof that I’d done something right.

To say that we celebrated that night is an understatement, but we weren't able to go out anywhere or do anything special. It takes days for a paper check to clear, especially when it's made out for a huge amount of money, and the one credit card we had was maxed out already. Still, we celebrated.

The next month, October, my wife’s sister and daughter moved out. With writing seeming like a sure thing for the future, my wife and I started looking for a house. We found one right away and by early November we moved in. It was our first house. We quickly made it a home.

There are a big surprise for us soon after, and just in time for Thanksgiving: another royalty check.

I was upstairs working in the office when my wife brought it to me. She’d opened the letter and from her expression I wasn’t quite sure whether it was extremely good news or extremely bad news.

At my hesitation, my wife said, It's good news, really good news.

And it was. I’d never seen that much money in my life, yet there it was on a check written out to me.

I was stunned, shocked.

My wife gave me a big kiss and wrap her arms around me. We stood like that for the longest time, just reveling in the moment. It was a measure of my success as a writer. A success as wild as any I ever imagined.

The books I had been working on were published shortly after. Web Publishing Unleashed Professional Reference Edition in December 1996, FrontPage 97 Unleashed in January 1997 and Netscape ONE Developer’s Guide in March 1997. Altogether, those early books had many millions in sales at retail, exceeding even the wildest of my wildest dreams.

In your own writing, dare to dream. You never know what might happen.

Thanks for reading, I’m William Robert Stanek, Microsoft’s #1 author for nearly 20 years, and author of over 200 topselling books.

A Long Hard Slog Up the Middle: A Writer's Journey Part 2

As I was saying last time, I finished my first full-length novel in '86, won my first writing award in '91, and signed my first book contract in '94. Since then, I've written over 150 books which have been read by over 10 million people. But I almost gave it all up in the late '90s.

After months of waiting to hear good news, my wife and I were considering our options and wishing we’d sold the family home and moved to Seattle where I was working at the time, having gone back to full-time work other than writing.

Thankfully though after months of waiting, I heard got good news from my agent. The publisher wanted to meet with me. The publisher wanted to discuss my ideas.

During the meeting, it was clear that the publisher liked my ideas but I’d need to provide sample chapters, expand the series details, have more face-to-face meetings, and generally do more to convince them. The hard part that followed required a leap of faith. I couldn’t do all that was required of me, in the time that was required of me, and keep working full-time elsewhere. I had to quit the day job and proceed, or keep the day job and let the dream die.

I chose the dream. I gave notice, worked my last two weeks while I continued developing the materials needed. A few weeks in, I learned the publisher had one idea for the series and I had another. Worse, the concepts were radically different.

I thought for sure disaster was ahead. Thankfully, the publisher did eventually sign me to a two-book contract. A contract to do things their way—and not my way.

However, the sample chapters I’d written over the past weeks were for my series concept and not theirs, so I kept writing the books my way. For this publisher, it was something unheard of for any writer to go outside the standard or to deviate from fixed standards. But my editors loved the final chapters I submitted, and I completed the work in its entirety ahead of schedule—so many weeks ahead of schedule they didn't quite know what to do, and this also was something else that was unheard of.

In fact, I was so far ahead of schedule, that the book’s publication dates were moved back several months. Those several months proved critical, as they allowed the publisher to showcase the books at a major industry event when the publisher otherwise would not have been able to. And the books done my way were smash hits at the event.

The rest as they say is history. Those contracts were followed by two other contracts from other publishers that I’d contacted previously. Suddenly, I was back in the publishing business.

Looking back now after I these years, I know exactly what I would have given up, had I not chased the dream. That little series I started? That series would eventually go on to become one of the biggest blockbuster series for the publisher, with $100M in worldwide retail sales—and counting.

Those first books I wrote in that series? They set the foundation for the entire series and became critically-acclaimed, award-winning bestsellers.

Sometimes in life you must take that leap of faith. Sometimes you must believe in yourself when no one else does. Sometimes you must follow the wrong path to find the right one.

Talk to you next time,

Robert Stanek

Nielsen BookScan Sales Data Can Be Misleading (Or Alternatively Understanding This Brave New World of Publishing a Little Better)

I think most everyone is guilty of preaching. I see lots of opinionated posts that pretty much state, ‘I know everything because I have published a book.” And I know what they mean, because that’s what a lot of people mean when they’re giving their opinion. Sometimes I’m one of those people too. I’d like to think my 20 years of experience as a pro author and 12 years of experience as an indie author get me pretty far in the expert department (but I’m also smart enough to know there are very few actual experts on anything). Publishing has been changing so fast over the past decade that many so-called experts are left scratching their heads as they try to understand what’s going on. One of those experts being left behind is Nielsen BookScan.

For those who don’t know, Nielsen BookScan is a company that collects retail sales information from bookshops. Many companies, including Amazon.com, use Nielsen BookScan sales data to track the sales history of books. Some bestseller lists also use Nielsen BookScan sales data to determine which books are the bestsellers in specific categories at any given time.

Much like bestseller lists, which I’ve written about in Bestseller Lists Can Lie, Nielsen BookScan sales data doesn’t actually show the total sales of any book in any particular category or at any particular time. More accurately, Nielsen BookScan sales data is reflective of a statistical sample of sales of particular books in particular categories or genres at a particular time. More plainly, Nielsen BookScan sales data captures a relatively small portion of book sales in particular markets and locations.

However, Nielsen BookScan sales data is often presented as if it shows a book’s total actual sales or equally as bad some imagined percentage of actual sales. Even Amazon.com which should absolutely know better as a digital online leader misrepresents to authors what Nielsen BookScan sales data actually is. BTW, your Author Central account on Amazon.com shows sales data for Nielsen BookScan US (which is itself one segment of the ten currently tracked markets).

On numerous occasions, I’ve had publishers and others in publishing tell me with a straight face that you can tell the total sales of a book simply by multiplying the Nielsen BookScan sales for a book by some imagined value. Usually, the X factor stated ranges from 1.5 to 2.5 depending on the type of book. Twenty years ago, when books released in the US were primarily sold only in the US in physical, tracked stores that may have been true. Such a thing hasn’t been true for a long, long time in the US or anywhere else.

Here’s what Nielsen BookScan tracks exactly: English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market from about 35,500 tracked retail stores in 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, India, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, UK, and US. Prior to approximately early 2011, the tracked stores included only specific chain bookshops, key independent bookshops, and key supermarket stores. After approximately early 2011, Nielsen BookScan also began monitoring sales from leading internet book sites.

What doesn’t Nielsen BookScan track? Everything else. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track education (school, college, etc) or library sales. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track sales from most department stores, even though many carry books. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track non-English Language sales. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track any bookshops that don’t participate in the program or that aren’t considered key or leading. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track non-book sites that also sell books. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track internet book sites that aren’t considered key or leading. Nielsen BookScan doesn’t track English Language sales in any country other than the 10 where it currently does business.

To understand Nielsen BookScan, you also need to understand that the data is segmented by market (country). Nielsen BookScan US data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in the US and began operations in January 2001. Nielsen BookScan Australia data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in Australia and began operations in December 2000.

Nielsen BookScan New Zealand data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in New Zealand and has been operating since December 2008. Nielsen BookScan South Africa data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in South Africa and began operations in December 2003. Nielsen BookScan India data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in India and has been operating since October 2010. Nielsen BookScan International data is reflective of English Language sales statistics for the consumer book market in the UK and Ireland.

Something else you should know: From its inception to approximately early 2012, Nielsen BookScan was specifically for tracking titles that were physical products, meaning tracking of printed books and packaged audio. In approximately early 2012 Nielsen BookScan began working to track sales statistics for the consumer ebook market. Prior to this Nielsen BookScan did not track ebook sales. Nielsen BookScan also does not track digital audio sales in any market.

Nielsen says that BookScan in the US tracks approximately 16,000 locations or roughly 85% of the market but then states that it collects sales data for only 500,000 titles in a typical week. Visit Amazon.com and you’ll find about 12,000,000 titles. My best estimate is that about 35% of these titles are books actively available in the US, including printed books, digital books, packaged audio, digital audio, etc. 35% of 12 million titles is 4.2 million. 4.2 million - .5 million is 3.7 million. Where exactly is the sales data for these 3,700,000 titles? Well, it’s not tracked.

Within a market, such as the US, Nielsen BookScan also provides historical sales data by category, format, author, and publisher with weekly data aggregated into four and twelve week blocks. Titles are tracked by ISBN, the unique identifier for book products. Nielsen BookScan can track sales across formats. At present, this cross-format tracking is for alternate physical editions of books and the tracking is dependent on each related title being properly cross-linked by the publisher in the first place (generally by specifying a related ISBN).

The clear problem here is that modern books are often released in many formats, in many editions, and in many markets. As an example, in the English language there are over 600 William Robert Stanek titles at Amazon and over 900 William Robert Stanek titles in library distribution. You can check these numbers yourself by counting all William Stanek, William R. Stanek, William Robert Stanek, and Robert Stanek titles.

There are an additional 400 or so of my titles in the English language that don’t even have my name on them. They are sold under a brand name. For example, Bugville Learning and Ruin Mist Publications are two of my brands and titles released in these brands may or may not have my name on them even though I have of course written them.

I have hundreds of inactive and/or otherwise out-of-print titles as well. Additionally, over the past 20 years, my books have been translated into 34 languages. All of these translations were released in many formats and editions as well. In total, there are thousands of my titles published in the past 20 years.

How many of these titles has Nielsen BookScan US ever tracked? Well, Nielsen BookScan US didn’t track any sales prior to January 2001. Nielsen BookScan US didn’t track Internet sales until approximately early 2011. Nielsen BookScan US just started tracking ebooks sales and doesn’t track digital audio sales. Nielsen BookScan US doesn’t track education sales. Nielsen BookScan US doesn’t track library sales. Nielsen BookScan US doesn’t track any sales outside the US. I could go on, but I won’t. I think you get the point.

Finally, don’t confuse Nielsen ratings with Nielsen BookScan US. With Nielsen ratings, the television viewing habits of a relatively small cross-section of households are statistically extrapolated to be representative of millions of viewers across the US. With Nielsen BookScan US, the book buying habits of a subset of leading US retail locations are statistically extrapolated to be representative of the millions of books sold across the US. If you’re an author whose books are sold primarily in these retail locations, you’ll look like a superstar. If you’re an author whose books are sold primarily in other locations, you won’t look like a superstar.

Thanks for reading,

Robert Stanek

Authors, We’re All Mountain Climbers and Marathoners

Whether you’re a newbie dreaming of success, a workaday writer dreaming of paying the bills, somewhere in between or somewhere beyond, you’re a mountain climber or marathoner even if no one has ever told you as much. Mountain climbers are the lucky few. They’re off to Nepal in preparation for the trek that will take them up Everest almost as soon as their big book is published. Weather permitting, they’ll fly over the Himalayas to meet their Sherpa guides. They’ll hike the trail to Namche Bazaar and catch a first glimpse of Everest as their big book lands on a bestseller list. Then they’ll set out on the trail along the Bhote Kosi and the Nangpa La and their big book will keep climbing up the bestsellers lists as they make their way to Everest Base Camp.

It’s a two-week journey from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp. After the ascent, the climbers must retrace their steps and hike down a steep trail. Then it’ll be a long, if leisurely, trek back to Lukla and Phakding. If the weather holds, they’ll be able to fly back to Kathmandu without delay, where they can explore the city until they depart the following day for home. A week will pass on the return journey. When they get home, they can rest well knowing they made the climb. But for continued success they’ll eventually need to prepare to climb Everest all over again.

Marathoners aren’t as fortunate as climbers. Their trip to the Boston Marathon begins on quiet country back roads, busy city streets, and quaint city parks. These would-be marathoners may practice sprinting, publishing many works in a short time. They may walk to build endurance, publishing a few works over a long time. Or they may jog at a steady pace, publishing works steadily as they go. Although the books of these sprinters, walkers and joggers may never land atop bestseller lists, these sprinters, walkers and joggers are all working toward the same goal. They all want to enter the marathon and cross the finish line in Boston, having walked, run or crawled for 26 miles and 385 yards to do it.

It’s a grueling 4 hours and 39 minutes on average to complete a marathon at a steady pace of about 10:34 per mile. For those who walk, it’s about 8 hours on average to complete a marathon. Whether you run or walk, crossing the finish line is exhilarating. But crossing the finish line isn’t the end of the ordeal. The second you cross the finish line you must resist the temptation to plop down on the ground. You must walk around. You must hydrate and eat. You must begin recovery. How you take care of yourself will determine how quickly you’ll recover. How quickly you can marathon again.

What no one tells the mountain climber is this: Your next attempt to climb Everest may not be a successful one. If so, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to climb Everest and failing. Lots of climbers have attempted Everest and failed. Perhaps you simply have to shake off the failure and prepare your ascent again. Or perhaps your next mountain isn’t Everest at all. Perhaps it’s Mount Fuji. Or perhaps you may find that success requires a marathon after all.

What no one tells the marathoner is this: You may not be able to complete the marathon. If so, perhaps you are a half marathoner instead of a marathoner or perhaps you were running in the wrong race after all. There’s nothing wrong with being a half marathoner instead of a marathoner. There’s nothing wrong with learning you’ve been running in the wrong race. At the end of all your marathons, you may even find that you were a mountain climber after all.

Bestseller Lists Can Lie (Or Alternatively Finding Your Happy Place While Perusing the Bestseller Lists)

I'm Robert Stanek and I founded Go Indie and Read Indies to help and support independent authors. Today, I want to break down a mistruth in this industry: the one that says bestseller lists show the actual bestsellers in the industry. The simple truth is that bestseller lists don't necessarily show the books that actually are bestselling in any category or any genre at any particular time. More accurately, bestseller lists are reflective of the bestselling books at any particular time in any particular category or genre.
  

Bestseller lists, like those in the New York Times, can lie. Every year books appear on the New York Times lists that have relatively few sales, especially when you get into the extended portions of particular lists. Every year books appear on the New York Times lists that have fewer sales relative to other titles in a particular genre that aren’t on the list. Every year books appear higher on the New York Times lists that actually have fewer sales than titles ranked lower on the list. And none of this is specific to the New York Times lists, rather this is specific to all lists of this nature.

Bestseller lists capture a portion of sales in particular markets and locations. Some bestseller lists incorporate numbers reported to them by publishers as well, which is sort of like inviting the fox into the hen house.

Publishers can become craftsman at working the bestseller lists to ensure important titles land on them. Ways some publishers do this: one-day laydowns, strict street dates and distribution focused on locations tracked by the lists. So if you’re Publisher XYZ and you have a book that you want on a particular New York Times list, you ensure the boxes of books arrive at specific stores on a specific date, can’t go on sale until a specific “street” date and you ensure those stores tracked by the list are your priority focus—you may even ship at different times to markets not tracked by the list to ensure buyers have to go to locations tracked by the list to make purchases.

Publishers organize marketing, drive pre-orders, give tracked stores incentives—whatever it takes—to ensure buyers go out and buy the book on a specific date or dates and especially at tracked stores—and those targeted sales at the right locations put the book on that important list. For some of the most important lists, depending on time of year and category, that tactic can be used to put a book on that all important list with only a few thousand actual sales in a particular week. For other lists, depending on the time of year and category, that tactic can be used to put a book on a list with less than several thousand actual sales in a particular week. Go into the extended lists and that tactic can be used to put a book on an extended list with even fewer sales. Yet when publishers proclaim a book a New York Times bestseller, they rarely state the list the book was on and I don't think I've ever seen one make the distinction between a primary list and an extended list.

Being on a bestseller list is, of course,  very cool for authors and publishers alike. I just would prefer specificity and you may as well. When possible and practical, a USA Today Bestseller should be listed as such and by category, as should a Publisher's Weekly or other print media bestseller. Likewise for online bestsellers, which should list the website and category. Preferably the category will be a top level or competitive second-level category, as this will have more relevance than lower level categories.

With my books, when possible and practical, I always try to state exactly where my book was a bestseller and in what category and in the relative position within a category. I believe that's the only honest approach. As examples:

'The Pieces of the Puzzle' was #1 Fiction for 4 weeks, Top 10 Mystery for 11 weeks and Top 20 Mystery for 16 weeks at Audible.com. 

'The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches' was #1 in Fiction at Audible and soon #1 on the entire site and not long after one of the Top 100 grossing titles in Audible’s history.

When you are specific, whether on a media list or online list, you let readers determine relevance for themselves. As online categories at specific sites are straight forward and based on actual sales numbers, rather than being weighted or based in part on a publisher's reported numbers, I believe online lists when specified precisely can be more honest than media bestseller lists.

The New York Times in particular has many bestseller lists. These lists change over time and currently, at the time of this writing, are as follows:

Combined Print & E-book Fiction (Top 15, extended to Top 35)

Combined Print & E-book Nonfiction (Top 15, extended to Top 35)

Hardcover Fiction (Top 15, extended to Top 35)

Hardcover Nonfiction (Top 15, extended to Top 35)

Paperback Trade Fiction  (Top 20, extended to Top 35)

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction (Top 20, extended to Top 35)

Paperback Nonfiction (Top 20, extended to Top 35)

E-book Fiction  (Top 25, extended to Top 35)

E-book Nonfiction  (Top 25, extended to Top 35)

Hardcover Advice & Misc.  (Top 10, extended to Top 15)

Paperback Advice & Misc.  (Top 10, extended to Top 15)

Children’s Picture Books   (Top 10, extended to Top 25)

Children’s Middle Grade    (Top 10, extended to Top 15)

Young Adult    (Top 10, not-printed extended)

Children’s Series   (Top 10, not-printed extended)

Hardcover Graphic Books   (Top 10, not-printed extended)

Paperback Graphic Books   (Top 10, not-printed extended)

Manga  (Top 10, not-printed extended)

Combined Hardcover & Paperback Fiction (Top 35, not-printed extended)

Combined Hardcover & Paperback Nonfiction (Top 35, not-printed extended)

Each list has a primary and an extended portion. Some of these lists are harder to get on and more competitive than others. Generally, the number of titles on each list is reflective of how competitive the list is. Generally, unit sales, or the number of books sold, is what lists look at vs. the cost of a book and its total earnings. However, the lists depend on tracked store reporting, on publisher reporting and relative weighting. These things virtually guarantee certain types of books will never appear on certain media bestseller lists--at least until the rules are changed to be more reflective of the entire marketplace (and I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen anytime soon).

If you're an indie author, while you likely won't get on such a list with printed books, you may get on such a list with ebooks. Inclusion of ebooks is something that's happened only in the last few years. Ebooks were included when the list creators started realizing that many e-only books had unit sales above those of what they were calling bestsellers at a particular time. For the authors whose books peaked before such reporting, they simply missed the opportunity to have those books appear on the media lists--and there were many authors who lost such opportunities. 

View any of these lists online and you’ll be able to read a full explanation of their methodology for creating each list. When you read the fine print, you find that the lists are weighted like I've mentioned: “The universe of print book dealers is well established, and sales of print titles are statistically weighted to represent all outlets nationwide.” 

In other words, the lists for printed books are representative of sales at tracked stores and then multiplied by and/or padded with a modifier value to represent sales across the US. (And there's other fine print as well, such as with regard to publisher reported numbers, etc, etc.)

Reading this you may wonder if a list like this is sort of like Nielsen ratings for books. With Nielsen ratings, the television viewing habits of a relatively small cross-section of households are statistically extrapolated to be representative of millions of viewers across the US. Nielsen ratings are carefully controlled. The bestseller lists are not. With the bestseller lists, publishers know what stores and markets are tracked and what stores and markets aren’t tracked. Using statistical weighting, a few thousand sales at tracked stores can be interpreted as many, many thousands of sales across the US.

It's important to point out that if a list includes publisher reported numbers, as many lists did and some continue to do, the honor system was/is relied upon. The publisher reported numbers were/are simply relied upon as fact--something that some publishers took advantage of by shipping out huge numbers of books at steep discounts and than calling the books "sold."

As with print books, ebook-related lists are representative of the industry while not necessarily all inclusive.  At the time of this writing, the New York Times states they don't weight ebook sales yet--but may in the future--while also stating they track only certain ebook markets. It could be list creators simply want to find ways of being relevant when everyone else is looking to the primary online marketplaces themselves to determine what book is a bestseller at any given time. It's also important to point out that e-audio isn't included in such numbers, nor are ebook sales from websites not considered primary markets.

Finally, keep in mind, it’s not just traditional publishers who work bestseller lists. Over the past year or so, I’ve seen indies working online lists and I don’t like the trend.

Additionally, as cool as it can be for an author to see their free giveaway soar up the Amazon free list and maybe get to #1 Free in a category or even #1 Free on the entire site, a book given away isn't a bestseller. During my giveaways at Amazon every one of the books I had in KDP Select landed at #1 in a top-level category at some point in time. I gave away over 250,000 books and I don't count any of it as anything. Why? I gave the books away for free. Readers weren't purchasing them. Reaching #1 Free multiple times was fun but ultimately meaningless (and I do of course, as always, reserve the right to change my opinion about this).

If you're an author and you disagree with my thoughts on free, and that's your choice to do so, I hope you'll always qualify in any reference that your book was being given away at the time. You can use the same qualifiers I discussed earlier with regard to website, category and position within category. For example:

A #1 Free Mystery at Amazon

Further, true bestsellers stay on print bestseller lists not for a single week but for multiple weeks. True bestsellers stay on online bestseller lists not for a few hours on a particular day or for a particular day but for many days. Here's an example:

'The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches was #1 on Audible for FOURTEEN consecutive weeks and then a Kids & YA Top 10 bestseller for the next THREE YEARS.

Now that's bestselling power and it was reflected in the massive sales and millions in retail earnings for my books at Audible.

Thanks for reading,

Robert Stanek

Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Or Alternatively Muddling Through the Gold Rush… ;-)

Hi I'm Robert Stanek and I founded Go Indie and Read Indies to help and support independent authors. I've been an indie published author since 2001 and a professionally published author since 1995.

The writer’s life can be a great one. I don’t regret this writer’s life. Not in any way. But I am kind of tired of hearing about how poverty has chosen our profession and I am equally tired of hearing about writers who once made $45,000 in a week and now have a marketing book about it. Hence this post and its title: “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” And alternatively, “Muddling Through the Gold Rush.”

Recently a writer said in his blog that his indie bestseller made him nothing. The author said his book was on a particular bestseller list for about a week, expected it might make him a millionaire and was disappointed to find that he’d only (his word) earned about $15,000 that whole earnings period (which I assume covered a 3-month or 6-month period of time, based on the post). The disappointment in the post was quite the opposite of the “gold rush” euphoria of some others. But why the disappointment in the first place? Events like that one are fun times. String a few of those together and you just might have a career in this crazy business.

Some time back I read a blog post from a writer who had been a full-time writer with several modestly successful books yet only made about $35,000 a year as a professional writer for most of his career, but now that he’d gone indie he’d “hit it big” (his words) and was enjoying income of $75K a year or so. He’d been a “successful indie” about two years at the time. Based on the price of his books, it wasn’t hard to figure out this “success” was about 50,000 book sales a year in total. Good numbers, not necessarily big numbers. The truly BIG numbers come over the long term like when you continue to sell 50,000 books year after year for a decade or two.

Another indie expert I met along my travels was a writer who had a single period of success. She made $45,000 in a week during the holidays a few years ago and then rushed to publish a marketing book about her big success and to offer her indie marketing expertise. She’s had continuing sales but not like that one holiday success. I understand the “indie gold rush” euphoria that makes writers say and do things like this. Everyone in this crazy business of the writing life should. 

My thought on experts in any field is that there are very few actual experts. Be careful with that word when positioning yourself. Be honest too when you talk about your success and actual experience.

My thought on success in the writing life is that: You are a success when you know you are a success. Success isn’t about other people. It’s about you. John Steinbeck once said that “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.” 

Still, the truest success in this writing life really is something you can only look back on to know fully. The truest perspective comes with time. Time measured not in a handful of months or a couple of years but in many years, maybe even a decade or two.

Some of the biggest disappointments related to the writing life come from a misunderstanding of how the industry works. This business has feast and famine—boom and bust. What sells today might not sell tomorrow; what didn’t sell yesterday or today might sell tomorrow. You can be a failure today, a success tomorrow; a success yesterday, a failure today but a success tomorrow. Neither one sale nor one million sales make an expert—time and actual experience make an expert.

Don’t forget that in this “indie gold rush”–as with any gold rush—the ones who are going to strike it rich are more likely to be the ones on the periphery providing services than those of us who write the books. Mark Coker said something similar in a recent blog post. Now there's a guy who is an expert.

Thanks for reading,

Robert Stanek

Rising Above and Finding Success As a Writer: Robert Stanek's Writing Life

I'm Robert Stanek and I run Go Indie / Read Indies as a platform to help other writers. Throughout my life I’ve found myself in extraordinary circumstances. As a child, I loved watching episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man starring Lee Majors as the bionic man. I loved the spin-off show, The Bionic Woman starring Jaime Sommers, just as much. Both were stories of larger-than-life people in extraordinary circumstances. They were classic television shows, written in the style of the day, and like the classic novels of Verne and Wells and Stevenson they helped me transcend abject poverty, a tragedy-filled youth and the misery of my circumstances.

However difficult that journey from childhood was, it did prepare me for an extraordinary life. A life filled with not just fleeting moments of transcendence but a life filled with sustained stretches of transcendence where I was able to rise above circumstance time and again.

Where I find myself today is a long way from a childhood where “flour and water” pancakes were breakfast and a can of peas was dinner shared by many. A long way from that kid who graduated high school near the top of his class but had no way or means to go to college. A long way from that kid who joined the military to serve his country and make a better life but later found himself in multiple warzones. A long way from that kid who eventually put himself through college while working full time and starting a family but with no idea of what he really wanted to do in this life.

And yet, every turn that seemed wrong eventually became right as I was able to overcome circumstance and rise above--like a phoenix born from the ashes. So much so that now as I look back, it seems I look back upon another’s life, thinking that kid really couldn’t have lived through all that. But that kid did, and that kid is me--all grown up now.

That kid all grown up has had as many difficult turns as ever from encounters with crooked competitors to encounters with just plain crooks. To say that writing is a difficult business is a serious understatement. Any business where some very few make billions and millions is a difficult business. Exacting, harsh, risky--and dare I say at times even hazardous. That is the writing business. As a writer you put yourself out there for the world to see. Though others may try to twist and pervert the lens through which the world sees you, you can rise above--you can succeed. You have only to dare to dream.

And when you dare to dream, measure your success not by the words and thoughts of others but by standards of your own heart and mind. Believe in yourself. You are a success when you know in your heart and mind you are.

For me personally, though I’m in no way bashful about my commitment to the written word and will gladly let you know about the 150+ books I’ve written and the many millions who have read my books, while shouting from the rooftops about the same, success has never been about stacks of books written or millions of books sold. It’s always been about loving what I do and believing in what I do each and every day. That in itself is enough for me to know I am a success. It’s why I get up each and every morning eager to write. It’s why I’ve never had writer’s block. It’s why I’ve been so prolific over a lifetime of writing.

World's Greatest Rejection Letters, a Few Catch 22’s of the Trade and One Glorious Ride

I’ve been writing stories for 35 years—ever since I started writing for the school newspaper as a kid. In honor of my 150^th book, due out this year from my publishers, I’m taking a look back at where I began. I never stopped writing once I started all those years ago, I got really serious about the craft in Summer 1983 but it wasn’t until 1986 that I finished something I no longer considered a draft or an unfinished work—that being my first full-length novel. A done-novel and not a draft-novel. At the time, I was in the military and stationed in Japan. When I left Japan at the beginning of 1989, I had four finished novels and was on my way to Survival Training, followed by Air Combat School, and finally to a posting in Germany as a combat flyer.

Somewhere in there I met and married my wife of 22 years. Germany though was a tough posting for newlyweds as I was deployed somewhere or on temporary duty elsewhere most of the time, including two tours of combat in Iraq. I did manage to write from time to time, finishing a 5^th novel by the time I left Germany in the fall of 1991 for a new posting in Hawaii. It was in Hawaii that I decided to get serious about my job/career path. I enrolled in college as a full-time nights/weekend student and also started educating myself about how to get my work published.

1993-1995 were my years though, and years of many firsts. I sent out my first queries for publication. I learned about the rejection letter—that dreamkiller, that insensible article, that form letter often given out without a care (or even a manuscript ever having been read).

I learned all about how multiple submissions were frowned on because you should preferably send a manuscript only to one publisher at a time so you could wait 3 to 6 months for your form letter rejection instructing you your manuscript wasn’t read/wasn’t what they wanted or that you needed an agent to even make it out of the slush pile—the slush pile being the giant mail bins where manuscripts are/were dumped until someone took a manuscript out of its envelope and put it (typically) unread into the obligatory SASE (self-address stamped envelope you provided) for return.

I learned all about the Catch 22 of have agent / get published. You needed an agent to get through the slush piles (or so I was told quite a few times) only to be told by agents that I needed to be published to be considered by the agency so that I could get published. Neither publishers nor agents ever seemed to get the irony of that.

I learned all about fee-charging and non-fee-charging agents too. Some agents charged a fee simply to agree to read your work so they could—drum roll please—send you a rejection letter. They never seemed to get the incongruity of such a thing either.

I also made it through the slush piles at multiple publishers flying solo (er, having given up on agents… though not completely… ;-). Del Rey wanted to see my full manuscripts and the full series synopsis (this was for Ruin Mist Chronicles), so did Tor. Both the Del Rey and Tor requests came from executive editors. The one I was most hopeful about was from Betsy Mitchell, who would go on to become Editor-in-Chief at Del Rey.

It was a breathless sort of wait during the weeks that followed, only to end with dashed hopes. Betsy Mitchell’s letter was nicely written saying "The fantasy world you have created is truly wonderful and rich. Your characters seem real and full of life. It's a creative, provoking, and above all, thoughtful story! ... Unfortunately, your book is not the right fit for Del Rey."

The rejection letter from the executive editor at Tor was equally as fun: "The writing style is strong... the ideas are interesting and the writing good! ... The story isn't right for our line of books. We feel it's too hard to launch a new series by a new author at this time."

I didn’t buy into the idea that it was too hard to launch a new series by a new author. There were new books by new authors being published all the time. Undaunted, I made the rounds again, sending out samples and queries. A few months later when both Ace and Bantam asked to see my full manuscripts and series (Ruin Mist Chronicles) I completely forgot about the boatload of form rejection letters from all the other publishers I’d sent my queries too... ;-).

While I waited for responses, I also started looking at new areas to write in and how I could tie that into the career path I had chosen: Computer Science. I completed my Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science degree program in 1994, and was working to complete my Master of Science degree program. In my job in the military I was working deep in mainframes, Unix computing and this thing called the World Wide Web. The Web was new at the time and relatively few outside the military and academia had ever used it.

Cramming 6 years of school into 4 years while working full-time hadn’t left much time for breathing let alone writing, so by this time I was rather exhausted of the whole affair. I could’ve easily thrown in the towel. It’d been a long journey. It’d been an eventful journey.

On a whim, I drafted an outline for a book about publishing on the World Wide Web. I found the name of an editor at a publisher called Macmillan and sent the outline along with a query. I’m not sure why I picked that one editor at that one publisher, but I did. I expected it would be months before I got a response. I focused on completing my courses so I could graduate from my Master’s program.

Unexpectedly, I got a response from the editor almost immediately. A phone call, received by my wife, that I was to return. This was right before Thanksgiving (November 1994). I’d come home from a swing shift so it was about 2 AM when I got the news. I don’t recall sleeping that night, if I did I don’t remember. What I do remember is the phone call the next day—the call that changed my life.

Within days of that call I had a contract in my hand and a week later I was writing a “little” book called Electronic Publishing Unleashed. Originally, I was supposed to just be a contributor to the book but the publisher liked my work so much I ended up as the lead writer, writing ~800 pages of the 1050 pages.

The book was written and published to a break-neck schedule. I started in December finished by May and the book was published in September. Before I had even finished, the publisher signed me to a second book, Web Publishing Unleashed—a 950-page monster. I wrote right through graduation and into the fall, finishing ~750 pages by late October. That book was published in March 1996. Both books were huge bestsellers.

Web and Internet technologies moved, so fast that by the end of 1997 I had 10 published books to my credit. I never had time to breathe in those years, but I know one thing for certain. I know none of it ever would have happened if I’d given up. If I’d thrown in the towel back in 1994, I’d’ve missed out on the ride of a lifetime (and all the great rides that followed too).

Hanging in there for a decade is not something everyone can do. For many it’s simply not practical, but you have to believe in yourself, even if no one else does. Not everyone will make it. But if you love the craft, even if you never make a living at writing, it should be time well spent.

So, if you're a writer, enjoy the writer's ride. Triumph in the small joys. Words written. Pages finished. Characters and worlds created. A reader reached. A world changed, if only in the smallest of ways.