Looking to become a bestselling author? Authors write books for lots of reasons but for some, the dream of becoming a bestselling author is what entices many writers to see if they can turn that dream into a reality. Topping the charts sounds like a heady, almost impossible task with the thousands of authors that self-publish or traditionally publish their writing each year.
But is it? For writers who set up a solid strategy for their success, becoming a bestselling author is not as out of reach as you might think.
Bestselling Author Lists
The way that new publications are categorized as top-selling books is often tied to being named to a bestseller list. While these lists can originate from multiple places, a few specific ones like the New York Times Bestseller list or Amazon’s Bestsellers are widely recognized as authentic evaluations of a book’s success with readers, at least by some measures.
What They Are: Booksellers compile lists of all genres of books to report what readers are currently buying, but the lists sometimes only show part of the picture. While sales contribute to the formation of a list, authors and books must meet a few specific metrics to qualify for inclusion.
For example, to make the NYT Bestseller list, retail vendors must report their book sales within a specified period and only books identified with an acceptable ISBN number will be included. For self-published authors who don’t include this helpful code on their book, no volume of sales will earn them the coveted Bestselling Author label since booksellers can’t easily buy or sell without it.
How a Bestselling Author Label Helps: Earning a spot on a Bestseller List is the gift that keeps on giving to an author. Being able to call yourself a bestselling author means your brand, book, any future work you publish, and non-writing work will all feel a boon from this coveted label.
Credibility: Other authors, readers, and booksellers will all see your work in a different light once you have been labeled a bestselling author. Whether your brand as an author is new or your name is already well-known in literary or fan circles, the uptick in credibility as a bestselling author will enhance how you are viewed as a writer.
Title: Whether you have earned the title Bestselling Author on your first book or your 10th, the title will always be yours. Readers love to snag a book by a bestselling author because the title affirms that other readers in your genre found the writing compelling so likely they may as well.
Book Selling: You can add the Bestselling Author tag to any subsequent publications or a reprint of the list-making book, encouraging potential readers to give your book a try since some of your previous writing has been so well received. Often retailers will also group new releases by authors who have ranked on bestseller lists before, hoping to entice readers looking for a new book to discover. This helps to remind readers of your other popular books as well as give a boost to any new work you have out.
Increased Revenue Outside of Writing: One of the non-writing aspects of being a published author is scheduling speaking engagements where you can talk to potential readers, genre-enthusiasts, or any reason a literary discussion is of interest.
Seeking events as a bestselling author increases the fee you are paid since your worth as an author has been proven and verified by a venerable organization like the New York Times. Many bestselling authors are paid well for their time and sometimes a copy of their bestseller is gifted to attendees as well, increasing your book sales.
1. Choose Your Niche
The first step in becoming a bestselling author is to decide on which bestseller list you want to be on. Perusing the genre categories will help you pick one that matches your writing interests and abilities and is not so broad that even a well-written book might get overlooked.
Since some categories are tallied monthly and others are weekly, choosing the right category can increase the odds of earning a title. Typical categories include:
- Business
- Children’s: Middle-Grade Hardcover, Middle-Grade Paperback, Picture Books, and Children’s Series
- Fiction: Combined print and E-Book, Hardcover, Paperback Trade, and Audio
- Graphic Books and Manga Mass Market
- Non-Fiction: Combined print and E-Book, Hardcover, Paperback Trade, Advice/How-To/Miscellaneous and Audio
- Young Adult: Young Adult Series and Young Adult Hardcover
2. Write an Awesome Book
Of course, writing an excellent book that readers will love is the most critical step in this process to become a bestselling author. Use all the tools at your disposal to make sure your book ‘s content looks fantastic like hiring an editor to review your manuscript for story edits as well as grammar, sentence construction, and punctuation issues. Remember, you can aim for a bestseller list with every book you write, so pick the one that you are most passionate about and can do your best writing with to begin and leave the other ideas for your next bestseller list push.
3. Build Your Brand as a Bestselling Author
Once you have decided to set becoming a bestseller as a goal, you should start building your brand as an author. Waiting until your book is finished means you have lost valuable time getting the word out to potential readers about you and your upcoming book, so starting this step immediately is important.
Create an author website to showcase your talent and introduce your brand to readers. Include a bio, link to other work you have written, and consider putting a blog on your site to talk directly to readers about everything from your writing craft, your upcoming publications, and even speaking engagements or other in-person events you will be attending. Snag social media handles on platforms like X (Twitter), Tik Tok, and Instagram to reach potential readers and genre enthusiasts or even other authors and writing groups.
Regularly link your website on posts to direct users to your more in-depth author site and remember to always post content that reflects your brand and how you want your audience to see you as a professional writer. Interact on social media with other users and engage them in lively conversations about your book, writing, their genre interests or other books, or authors you love to build an authentic brand.
4. Start Marketing Your Book Immediately
Use your website and social media to tease your book, letting others know about what you are working on. Some authors share a few lines or pages from their work-in-progress while others tease at upcoming characters, storylines, or other aspects of their book to build excitement. Engaging users along the way with fun tidbits from your book or interactive posts helps create anticipation for your book’s release and can increase book sales once your book reaches the shelves.
5. Decide How to Publish Your Work
Authors can choose to self-publish their work or use a traditional publishing route to bring their book to readers.
Some authors choose to seek a publishing company to take their transcript through the editing, revising, printing, and distribution process. This starts with sending out letters and chapters (or a completed manuscript) to potential publishers, called querying, to see if they are interested in partnering with the author.
If a publisher is interested, then a book may be brought to publication in about a year or sometimes longer, depending on how much work is completed together as well as the timelines publishers have for printing and promoting specific genres, new authors, or other industry cycles they have.
A different route many authors choose is self-publishing because they choose to maintain autonomy over the final product of their writing by partnering directly with a printer like Dazzle Printing.
Self-publishing authors choose what to write, which edits or changes to make, how their book’s cover looks, and which marketing strategies to use to get it to the hands of readers before sending their manuscript off to the printer. Self-published books can be beautifully produced and can be indistinguishable from other traditionally published books on the retail or digital shelves.
6. Gather Support for Your Launch
Connect with professionals like editors to polish your book’s manuscript and social media experts to fine-tune your marketing steps. Most writers send out ARCs or advanced reader’s copy books to a select group of trusted friends or experts to read and give feedback on their manuscript before sending it off to the printer. Including an ARC group in your launch can ensure that the final draft of your book looks and reads well, increasing the odds that readers will love it so you can land on a bestseller list.
7. Lay Out a Winning Launch Strategy
Prepare to launch your book by planning out your social media posts leading up to the day readers can buy your book and where they can find it. Connect with potential retailers and online retailers to secure shelf space and set up your website page so readers can buy your book directly from you.
Coordinate your book’s arrival from the printer, transportation to booksellers, and plan a book launch party either in person, virtual, or both to build excitement. Consider book giveaways or promotions that will get books into the hands of those who have influence or stature in the literary world in hopes that they will provide early reviews on book sites like Goodreads or BookTok, the literary side of TikTok.
8. Follow Through with Your Plan
Once all of your plans are in place, try your best to complete them. Writing and publishing a book is fun, exciting, exhausting, and rewarding, but even amazing books don’t always earn that coveted Bestseller title. If your book misses the mark, try again with a fine-tuned strategy and the next installment of your writing ideas in hopes of snagging that elusive but thrilling Bestselling Author title!
