How to Write a Bestseller in 40 Days Or Less

Are you an aspiring author? Do you ever dream of writing a best selling book and getting all the notoriety and riches that come with it? Wait no more. "How to Write a Bestseller in 40 Days or Less!" by Barbara DeBolt is a complete step by step guide to writing a bestseller in 40 days or less.

Bestsellers as Formula Books

The premise behind the books is that best sellers are nothing more than formula books. A formula book is a book that fits a certain pattern - A happens before B which happens before C but at the same time as D and so on. In fact, if you read a large number of best selling novels in a particular genre - say adventure novels like Clive Cussler and the like, you will notice that they all follow a certain rhythm. You would expect the rhythm of a certain author to be fairly consistent but if you read 10 best selling authors in that genre, you will find that the rhythm/ the pattern of the books by all of them are almost identical.

The Book

"How to Write a Bestseller in 40 Days or Less!" walks you through a particular formula used in best sellers for a variety of sizes of books - from 40,000 words up to 625,000 words. It breaks down the books into the specific flows that need to be followed and what percentage of the book should be related to each of these flows. It is an appropriate guide, a recipe if you will, for writing a fictional best seller.

It states that each book should roughly have the following sections (all of which must be presented at exactly the right point in the book and for the appropriate number of pages to give maximum impact.)

• Introduction of characters and the mood of the book
  


• The main issue/theme of the book - what is going on
  


• A strong development of the main character and the theme
  


• Turning point - an event happens to the main character that wraps that character into the theme
  


• The hero begins to mold himself or herself to the events at hand
  


• The hero becomes completely committed to solving the issue
  


• All heck breaks loose - chaos
  


• The hero gets a grip on all these loose ends and begins to pull them together
  


• The wind down - loose ends are all tied together and the conclusion is reached - with perhaps hints of left over bits that can be wrapped into a sequel.

Obviously, there is a lot more to writing a best seller than just following this formula but chances are your fiction work won't become a best seller if it doesn't follow this formula pretty closely.

How to Proceed

If you are serious about writing a best seller or even just a darn good novel, I'd recommend getting this book and reading it. It is a quick read. Including all the formulas, it is only a bit over 100 pages. After you read it, pick up a best seller and find the formula that most closely matches the length of the book and start reading the book. Make notations on a piece of paper when you identify the elements that are discussed in the book and see how closely they parallel the formula.

Once you have done this exercise, you have begun to internalize the flow of a best seller.

Now do it a few more times with a few more best sellers to really get a strong grip on the formula.

Once you are very comfortable with the formula, you need to start writing. This may sound silly but the best way to get into the flow of best seller writing style is to actually take a few best sellers and write them out by hand. By doing this rather painful but quite effective exercise, you will internalize the style(s) used within the pages - the action words used, the scene transitions from chapter to chapter, the character interactions, the balance of conversation vs description, etc.

These are skills that need to be mastered to bring the formula to life. By taking this "shortcut", you will have a much higher chance of success than just sitting down and starting to write. In fact, with this formula, you can do the above exercise at the same time you are writing. Since you know how the sections of the book need to break down, you can just work with a portion of several existing best sellers and then work on your own version of that portion of the book and sort of go back and forth until that section is polished. And then, move on to the next section.

Not a quick process

In spite of the premise of the title - writing a best selling book in 40 days - expect it to take longer unless you are already a gifted writer. Writing, like anything else, is a skill that must be mastered, There is a careful balance that must be achieved in the book to bring it and the characters to life and that only comes with practice.

Do I recommend the book?

If you are truly interested in giving it your best shot, the book is a shortcut. All the information presented in the book is already in the best sellers themselves but it takes time and energy to build the roadmap yourself. I give the book a B rating because I don't believe it stands completely by itself. In other words, I don't think many people could pick it up and learn how to write a best seller - but I do think it can certainly help.

However, I personally believe you will better integrate the process by taking the longer route of building the roadmap yourself. If I were going to do it, I would choose three best sellers by three different authors in the genre I was interested in and I would handwrite each of the three books and make notations about flow, character style, etc. as I went along for each book. I also would have a long term goal of having a first book written in 12 to 24 months and tackle it as a part time effort so the process and the creative effort stays enjoyable.

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What Defines a Bestseller in Books?

Every author dreams of writing a bestselling book, but few new authors really understand what it takes to be a bestseller and just what defines a bestseller.

What it takes is selling a lot of books. How to do so is an entire topic of its own, but before figuring out how to reach the goal, authors first need to understand what the goal is. Just what does it mean to have a bestselling book-how many books do you have to sell?

Today, a bestseller is usually determined either by 1) Making the New York Times Bestseller list, 2) Having a high Amazon sales rank, or 3) Selling a large number of copies.

How does a book get on the New York Times Bestseller list? The truth of the matter is it's rather arbitrary. The New York Times has relationships with numerous bookstores that report their weekly sales to the New York Times. (Note that the New York Times' numbers do not include Internet sales, sales in department stores like Walmart, or sales in local gift shops). The books that sell the most each week in the targeted stores determine which ones make the list. If your fishing book is selling like hotcakes in Minnesota, but no bookstore there is reporting to the New York Times, your book isn't going to make the list, even if you sell more copies than the current Harry Potter of that week. Just as political polls have margins for error, so do the bestseller lists because it would be impossible to track each week every book sold everywhere in the country.

A book that never appears on the New York Times Bestseller list may well be a bestseller and outsell books on that list over time. Books that do not make a hit when they first come out can become popular through word-of-mouth and sell enough copies to achieve bestseller status even if they never appear on any bestseller lists. (Note that other lists exist such as Publishers Weekly, but the New York Times is the best known. Comparing a few different lists will show different books and different ranks, which shows no numbers are perfect representations of book sales. Accurate numbers are nearly impossible to acquire since publishers withhold sales numbers as privileged information, until generally books sell a million copies and then publishers simply print something like "Over a million copies sold" on paperback reprints).

Amazon has also become a key player in determining a bestseller because it provides a sales rank for each book listed. By getting a high sales ranking, for example, top 100, a book can also claim bestseller status. Like the New York Times, however, if a book on Amazon sells steadily but does not sell a large number within a short timeframe, its sales rank is not likely to go up as high as a book that sells ten thousand in a week. According to Brent Sampson's "Sell Your Book on Amazon" (2007) to acquire a ranking of 1-10, a book must sell over 500 copies in a day. Books that sell only one copy a week by comparison, end up in the 10,000-100,000 ranking. Many authors follow various strategies to manipulate and increase their book's Amazon rating by holding campaigns to sell as many books as possible within a week.

So just how many books do you need to sell to claim bestseller status? According to self-publishing guru, Dan Poynter, the number is 35,000. Since the popularity of a bestseller can be long or short, I think that's a fair number. A book might come out and make a huge hit and sell a million copies in a year, and then be forgotten. Other books, like the Bible, "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Pride and Prejudice" never appear on bestseller lists but they continue to sell steadily and have far outsold most books making the bestseller lists simply by their quality, word of mouth, and acceptance as great literature.

To sell 35,000 copies of your book is a big task. Studies show that 500,000 books a year are now being published. Of those, over 98% will sell less than 500 copies. If you're just starting out, shooting for 500 is a good start. After that, I would say you're moderately successful-and ready to strive for the thousands.

How important is it to claim "bestseller status"? At Wikipedia is an excellent list of all top ten bestsellers by year in the United States. Take a look at the list from 1951:

1. From Here to Eternity by James Jones


2. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk


3. Moses by Sholem Asch


4. The Cardinal by Henry Morton Robinson


5. A Woman Called Fancy by Frank Yerby


6. The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat


7. Melville Goodwin, U.S.A. by John P. Marquand


8. Return to Paradise by James A. Michener


9. The Foundling by Cardinal Spellman


10. The Wanderer by Mika Waltari

My guess is that, with the exception of maybe the first two listed, most of us have never heard of these books. So I ask again, how important is it to have a bestseller?

Your book may never make a bestseller list, but steady wins the race. Over time, you may sell more copies of your book than those books that make the bestseller lists. Authors dream of becoming famous over night, but producing a quality book is the best investment if you're looking for longevity, and longevity, in my opinion, is the best indication of success.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Review The Book, where authors and reviewers meet. Her team provides reviews of recently published books that are posted on the site as well as at least ten other sites.