APRIL HENRY, WRITER
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When is a bestseller not a bestseller? When it's bought and paid for

3/9/2019

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Traditionally, a bestseller was a book that was selling lots of copies in many bookstores.  

Things got complicated with ebooks.

Every ebook has an Amazon best-sellers rank. Number 1 is the current best-selling ebook on Amazon Kindle and number 5,000,000 or something is the worst-selling book. Amazon updates their sales rankings every hour based on an algorithm.  It's harder to manipulate these overall rankings, although I assume it could be done because it's a much more limited universe than a lot of bookstores.  

But Amazon has created numerous subcategories of bestsellers. My latest book, The Lonely Dead, was ranked an Amazon bestseller in various subcategories numerous times. The rankings weren't manipulated, but it doesn't take many sales to make an ebook number one in a limited category (Children's Illness??)  for one day or even one hour.  
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This week, I was leafing through Oprah magazine and saw an ad for a company that variously called itself a marketing company or a publisher. "With the AUTHORity Package, it's all done for you, and we can turn around a finished product-from interview to bestseller-in as little as 30 days. Our process overall is what I call a modern approach to publishing; we function in a manner that's considerably different-and less formal- than the traditional publishing houses....Every book has been a best-seller. Our success rate is 100 percent."

When I looked up some of the books featured in the ad, some had rankings around 4,000,000.  So they clearly weren't really bestsellers for any length of time. I would assume they were "bestsellers" for a day or two. 

How much does all this "success" cost?  There's a stripped down program that involves three webinars and you doing all the work yourself.  And that costs $1800!  I can only imagine what the full program costs. When someone wants you to pay a lot of money for something, be skeptical and do lots of research. 

In traditional publishing, money flows to the author. Personally, I like traditional publishing.  I have experts who edit my book, design the interior, design the cover, market it, get it into libraries and bookstores, sell foreign rights, etc.  

​If you want to self publish, you should control things yourself, not pay someone thousands of dollars to do a (not very good, judging by the clip art covers I saw in the ad) for you.  

Here are some ideas on how to do it yourself:  https://www.janefriedman.com/self-publish-your-book/

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  • Home
  • Past News
  • Bio
    • Goodbye, 2021
    • How my Apple watch saved my life
    • Masks for Covid-19
    • In the name of research
    • Why I write scary things
    • Roald Dahl Made Me a Writer
    • Fun Facts about April
    • Questions teachers often assign
    • 10 Reasons I Love Martial Arts
    • Learning to Fight Back
    • Dear Teen Me
    • My Parents >
      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
    • My great-grandfather, the killer
    • I come from a long line of criminals
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • Future books
      • Girl Forgotten
      • Two Truths and a Lie
      • Eyes of the Forest
      • Playing with Fire
      • The Girl in the White Van
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • The Lonely Dead
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
  • Fun
    • FAQ
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • How to get an agent
    • Videos with writing tips
    • Writers writing during Covid-19
    • Tips for writers
    • Story starters
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • Need to create a fake social media profile?
    • How to start a new book
    • My daughter is 14 - how can she be published?
    • I'm a teen writer-can you give me feedback?
    • Student Writing
    • How to get it right
    • Questions about writing from two teens
    • Should I pay to be published?
  • Blog
  • Contact