March 11, 2018 10:26:40
Posted By John Poindexter
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A good friend of mine recently gave me a copy of Lee Child's Gone Tomorrow, a Reacher novel.
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.
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… :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 Please visit my website at www.johnpoindexter.com |