A good friend of mine recently gave me a copy of Lee Child's Gone Tomorrow, a Reacher novel.
It was the first one I have read and I just couldn't put it down.

It starts in the wee hours of the morning, Reacher finds himself on a New York Subway with five other people.
Only one peaks his curiosity. His encounter with her starts the action that will keep you reading like it did me.

My friend is so into Reacher that he recently gave me Child's Killing Floor. I am very happy that he likes to read Thrillers, as I have asked him to be a Beta reader for me.
He did read Hawks' Dilemma and pointed out some things that he thought I might want to fix.

I was very appreciative of his suggestions.

Here is a Guest Post I hope you enjoy.

Please leave your Comments down below. Just click on the word Comments.

Is this gaming the system? If so, is it worth it?
Beth Ann Erickson
http://FilbertPublishing.com

Last night an acquaintance of mine hit a bestseller chart. That’s generally good news. Except this time, I was left scratching my head. Allow me to explain:

When I launched Filbert Publishing back in ‘01, I generally followed basic publishing rules, one of which was this: Always place your book in the appropriate category so potential readers can find it.

Not complicated, eh? It apparently is now.

Seems there’s a publishing strategy that maintains that customer discoverability is less important than bestseller status.

In this case, the author just released a thriller. Fiction. She apparently placed her book in the “Health, fitness, and Dieting” category. Uhhh… that’s nonfiction.

Turns out, the author found a category that wouldn’t be difficult to rise through the ranks. She placed her book in that category, sold a few copies, and boom… Amazon bestseller, in that particular category.

But… what about the reader? If you were perusing Health, Fitness, and Dieting to find a new book and you ran into a thriller… would that matter?

If you wrote a legit book in that category, would you appreciate your area being inundated with fiction, something not remotely related to your topic?

If you were a legit thriller author and were selling more books than this author, would you appreciate her bestselling status?

I don’t have any answers for this. In fact, I was pretty surprised to find fiction creeping into hard core nonfiction areas.

So here’s my question: Does this matter? Am I wondering out loud over nothing? Does best selling status matter?

I can’t wait to hear what you think… :)

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This article is courtesy of Filbert Publishing. Make your writing sparkle, write killer queries, get published. Subscribe to Writing Etc., the free e-mag for freelancers and receive the e-book “Power Queries.” http://filbertpublishing.com

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