How to write a bestseller

Is there a magic formula?

 In case you think this article will be smug or patronising, I have to start by admitting I haven’t written a best seller! My second novel is doing well and last weekend the kindle version was the fastest selling book in Canada for a few glorious hours, but building a reputation takes time and patience and I am under no illusion that fame is guaranteed – assuming it’s desired in the first place. But I’ve had two books published now, and having been a teacher for nearly forty years, I’ve found this new ‘profession’ of mine to be a steep learning curve. Nevertheless, I’ve learned a few things…

First of all, not everyone wants to write best sellers! Literary fiction doesn’t sell as well as commercial fiction, but if you write beautiful, original prose that helps create novels of the highest quality, you may have other goals in mind. There are glittering prizes out there  - Booker, Bailey’s, the Guardian first novel award, Costa… and sometimes those awards are more precious than rankings – even though one can lead to the other. Writing the best book you can is always satisfying, and sometimes that is reward enough.

And that brings me to my second point. To be in with a chance of writing a ‘best seller’ – assuming that’s your goal – you have to write a good book. And you have to write your book. It’s no good trying to emulate other writers, or spot a trend and try to jump on the bandwagon. For a start, novels take a long time to write so by the time any prospective book is published the trend may well have moved on. Secondly, if you try to write to order, your words will lack conviction. You have to write the novel that’s on your heart – and hope it strikes a chord with others too.

 But having said that, if what you are writing chimes with the national consciousness, or sounds a warning about future world developments, it may well be that you have captured the zeitgeist and people will start to get behind your book. These things are hard to predict though, so again you just need to write your book as well as you can.

 Readers are, of course, extremely diverse. What one person enthuses about, another may find boring. You can’t please anyone. Again, you have to be true to yourself. What I have found though is rarely will readers persist with a book if they don’t find the characters convincing. They don’t necessarily have to empathise with them, but they have to believe in them. Two-dimensional characters, unless you are writing for comic or satirical purposes, rarely work. Live with your characters for a while before you commit them to the page. Then they are more likely to be authentic.

Your story needs to be convincing too. Readers will accept a great deal, as long as you have created a plausible world peopled with believable protagonists. You may not want to write a ‘page turner’ but you have to give your reader a reason to read on, so create plot lines that absorb them.

Finally (although I could go on for much longer!) you need to write in prose that is accurate and polished. If your sentences are clumsy, or too self-conscious, or full of errors, you will make your reader feel uncomfortable (and no self respecting publisher will take you on!) Basically there shouldn’t be anything that takes the reader away from the story, so check your work carefully, and run it past people who will read critically and give good advice.

So there you go …easy! Except that there is one little bit of magic involved – and that is the mysterious alchemy that takes place when your book hits a nerve and readers start to recommend other readers to buy your work. And that, assuming you have put everything else in place – and have a strong publisher behind you – is probably down to a little bit of fairy dust!