By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief
Book discovery advice is a lot like diet advice. It just keeps changing, getting more complicated and increasingly difficult to know what really works. There are a few agreed-upon principles:
- You need good metadata, but what that is exactly is still being hashed out.
- You need some form of audience interaction — a web site, active social media stream, something…
But, just like the diet industry, there are hundreds (nee: thousands) of companies, consultancies and advisors who are willing to offer you the illusion of a shortcut to success — provided you’re willing to pay for their particular brand of magic. But just like with dieting, there are no shortcuts.
Here, as with most things the KISS principle applies…
In dieting, it’s:
- Eat less
- Move more
In books, it’s:
- Publish a book people want to read.
Stick with that and success is all but guaranteed.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
3 Comments
I agree that your bullet point for books is vital. You can’t have a bestseller unless people want to read it.
However, it’s not the only piece of the equation. Getting the book in a position that someone who isn’t the author’s mum finds it and thinks, “this looks like the sort of things I’d enjoy reading,” is extremely difficult. You end up in a catch 22 situation where bookshops and Amazon emphasize the things that are already selling, so the first time author with no marketing budget can be left in the shadows with their gem of a book that no one’s ever heard of.
Like dieting, there’s no one simple way to make everything wonderful, but discovery advice can help that new author step out of the shadows a little bit and hope that the book’s readability will start shining on its own.
That’s right ! Publish a book people want to read. What technology and the web can help you today is to understand (or find) what people want to read before you publish a book. That will really help.
Fernando, I have to disagree. This is one of the mistakes publishers make – attempting to find books to publish which resemble last year’s hit. I believe they are currently scouring fanfic sites looking for something similar to Fifty Shades of Grey.
The next big thing readers fall in love with is likely to be entirely different (and cold-shouldered by publishers for that reason). The best advice to authors is write the story you feel passionate about, then with luck, readers will share that passion.