Ten Powerful Secrets of Best Selling Authors

7/26/2019 Ten Powerful Secrets of Best Selling Authors

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Welcome to Writers’ Village Academy!

The fact that you’re reading this means that you’re a serious writer. You’re my kind of person! It

also means that you’ll enjoy this report: Ten Powerful Secrets Of Best Selling Authors.

I hope you’ll find ideas in it that are new to you and that you can put into practice at once. It’sust a tiny sample of the fresh ‘how’ approaches you’ll discover in depth at the Writers’ Village

Academy when you join us.

You can learn more about the world’s most advanced program for serious fiction writers - andgain your first month free, without obligation - at:

http://www.writers-village.org/wva-plus-free.php

Meanwhile, have fun with these ideas!

Dr John Yeoman, PhD Creative Writing, Writers’ Village Academy




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Ten Powerful Secrets Of Best Selling Authors

Why does a novel become a best seller? If you said 'great writing' you'd be wrong. Just check the quality of the latest best sellers. If you replied 'great marketing' you're right - but maybe not

in the way you think.

It's no trick for a best-selling author to bring out another block-buster and be assured of sales.The publisher simply has to announce it.

No marketing involved.

But how do you become a best-selling author in the first place? How did top authors like KathyReichs do it? What secrets do they know that we don't know, secrets they dare not tell us for fear

of creating their own competitors?

I'll tell you. And I'll let you into another secret. They all involve aspects of marketing.

I chose Kathy Reichs, author of 19 best-sellers, as my example because her novels illustrate both

great writing and great marketing. She writes in the crime/mystery genre. However, you can

apply these ideas to enhance the success of stories you write in any genre.

1. Have a memorable author name.

'Kathy Reichs' is the author's own name. It's short. It's distinctive. It's legible on a Kindle. If

your real name is terse and memorable, use it. But suppose you were born Józef Teodor Konrad

Korzeniowski or Rodney William Whitaker? Best use a pseudonym. The first became Joseph

Conrad and the other, Trevanian.

2. Keep your title short.

Choose a brief emotive title. Pack it with meaning, menace and drama. Why short? Your cover will shrink to a fingernail on Kindle and other mobile devices. So make it legible! James

Patterson typically uses terse or one word titles. Fang, Game Over, Private, The Fire...

So does Lee Child: Make Me, Personal, Never Go Back, The Affair, 61 Hours.

So does Kathy Reichs: Cross Bones, Devil Bones, Bare Bones, Bones To Ashes...

3. Use a 'series' title.

Since 2005, when Kathy Reichs's adult thrillers were dramatized in the tv series Bones, they

have all contained the word 'Bones' in their titles.

A series title builds a 'brand'. Readers who like one novel will confidently buy the next. Theyknow that the novels will probably have the same familiar characters, settings or themes, as



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Reichs's do. Certainly, they'll be in the same genre.

4. Publish a series of novels in fast succession.

A single novel won't go far unless you have a celebrity name or your publisher advertises it

massively. Both are unlikely for a debut author.

Have several novels in the pipeline – finished or nearly so - when you present your first work to

a publisher or go the self-publishing route. Publishers aren't interested in waiting five years for a

sequel. Nor are Amazon readers.

At Amazon, the 'tipping point' for a series linked by author or title is around five novels. That'swhen you build a fan base. Amazon starts to promote you. Its algorithms click in. And your

sales take off.

Kathy Reichs has published a new novel every year since 1997 and never missed a year. Some

authors who self-publish bring out a new novel every two months. It builds a funnel. One saleleads quickly to another. That's the way to maximise your income.

5. Make your prologue a 'high impact' sample of the whole novel.

What's a prologue? The first scene or chapter. Keep it short, below 3000 words. Make it vivid.

That's what readers see when they download a free sample at Amazon or leaf through your novel

at a bookshop.

Here's how Reichs's thriller Bones To Ashes starts:

'Babies die. People vanish. People die. Babies vanish.I was hammered early by those truths. Sure, I had a kid's understanding that mortal life

ends. At school, the nuns talked of heaven, purgatory, limbo, and hell. I knew my elders

would “pass.” … Nevertheless, the deaths of my father and baby brother slammed me hard.

And Evangeline Landry's disappearance simply had no explanation.'

Her first paragraphs present the essence of the plot. It also poses a mystery. We're intrigued. We

read on.

Even if you're writing in a totally different genre, still leave a question hanging in your

prologue. How will this conflict be resolved?

If you have no conflict in your first scene, you have no story.

Writing literary fiction? Or a story where an opening mystery or question just wouldn't be right?

Then enchant us with the power of your style. The reader thinks: “This author can write! I'm in

safe hands.” And they read on.



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6. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short .

Note Reichs's sentences in the extract above. They average just six words. Her paragraphs are

typically no longer than five lines and often just one line.

That's the style of modern tabloid journalism. If you're writing commercial – i.e. popular – fiction – study downmarket media. Read The Huffington Post .

Short units of meaning. Simple words. A carriage return after every line.

If you aspire to Literature you can ramble on forever. Insert poetry, obscure words, semi-colons,lots of commas, and even – yes, I'll let you do it – dependent clauses (like the one you've just

read). It will kill your sales. But no matter. You might win the Booker Prize and gain best-seller

status that way.

7. Create a series protagonist or main character that mirrors your target reader .

Reichs's heroine is Prof. Temperance (Tempe) Brennan. Tempe is a lovable, scatty, attractive

woman in early middle age – and flawed. She's a recovering alcoholic. Her IQ is supposed to beoff the radar but she often acts like a child.

She's a 'heroine' in the classic sense – perpetually getting into perils of her own making but

saved at the 11th hour by her own virtues.

She's what every female reader of Reichs's thrillers wants to be.

To appeal to male readers (as well as the women), Reichs offers us Ryan, Tempe's off/on

boyfriend. He's a handsome street-wise macho cop. He's deeply flawed. In his teens, he ran withgangs. He has a drug-addicted daughter and bad memories. He lives with demons.

In her two protagonists, Reichs presents idealized versions of her own target readers, female andmale. Do the same.

8. Devize a 'foil' character.

Your main character needs a 'foil' or buddy. Give them someone to talk to – a person they trust

but occasionally spat with.

Conversations with the buddy character can introduce conflict to keep a scene alive, give themain character a plausible sounding board for their woes and triumphs, and also prompt the

protagonist to reveal information. ('Ryan frowned. “Run that past me again, Tempe.”')

When Ryan's out of reach, Tempe talks to her cat, Birdie. One lift of its eloquent paw and she'sclarified the problem in her mind. Or, at least, for the reader's benefit.



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Foil characters also furnish sub-plots. Get them into troubles of their own. Make them victims.

Whenever the plot sags, Ryan is assaulted by hoodlums. Or Birdie gets abducted.

Use a foil as a series character in your every novel.

9. Make your plot worthy of your reader.

That's easy enough in a crime/suspense or adventure story.

'A devilish plot to steal the Amish treasure is foiled by a kick-ass ninja nun who must

sacrifice her vows and virtue to save the man she loves.' (Or something like that.)

Reichs's thrillers typically open with the discovery of a decomposed body. It points to a web of

atrocious crimes, long concealed. Tempe forgets that she's a forensic anthropologist, bound by a

Code of Practice. She plays amateur sleuth, interferes with police investigations and predictablycomes close to losing her life and job. In every story.

Implausible? Yes. Formulaic? Yes. But the drama grips us from page one.

Whatever your genre, have a very strong plot.

10. Develop a unique Voice.

This is optional. Some best-sellers have all the stylistic charm of a software manual. But they

sell. Why? Readers of blockbusters buy story, not style.

However, Reichs does have a unique Voice. Set any passage of her work against that of her great

rival Patricia Cornwell and you'll know at a glance who wrote which.

Reichs is manically inventive in her language and frisky in her rhythms. She writes like a happy

kitten. Cornwell is grim and stealthy in her pace, like a cold-minded panther.

Here's Reichs (206 Bones)

“I’m pleased you speak English, detective.”A subtle tensing around the eyes suggested that Schechter’s first words did not sit well with

Ryan.

“Mais oui, monsieur.” Ryan’s accent was over-the-top Parisian.

“Mr Jurmain requests clarification on a number of points.”Schechter’s tone indicated that Ryan’s humor was not appreciated.“Dr Brennan and I have prepared scene and autopsy photos to walk you through the

investigation.”

Clicking his pen to readiness, Schechter gave an imperious wave of one hand.

Ryan spoke to me in French. “ Let’s clarify this prick’s head right out of his ass.”“Certainment,” I agreed.



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Here's Cornwell (The Bone Bed )

‘I check my oversized titanium watch on its rubber strap and reach for my coffee – black, no

sweetener – as distant footsteps sound in the corridor of my bullet-shaped building on the

eastern border of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s campus. Headlights movealong the embankment like bright insect eyes, the Charles River rippling darkly. Across theHarvard Bridge the city of Boston is a glittery barrier separating the earthbound empires of

business and education. It’s too early for staff unless it’s one of the death investigators.’

Voice cannot be forced. Let yours develop by itself. After you've written five good novels, you'll

have one.

A distinctive Voice will help you build a fan base. Readers will either hate it or love it. I buy

every novel that Reichs publishes because I love her Voice. But I wouldn't read a new Patricia

Cornwell story if you paid me to. Her Voice offends me.

Yet both authors have a million fans. And each fan adores the author's Voice.

What do these ten tactics have to do with 'marketing' your book? Everything! Unless you getthem right, you can forget about advertising, social networking, blog tours, Goodreads

Giveaways, clever tricks for gaming Amazon, and all the other voodoo sold by by book

promotion gurus.

Your book might be the greatest literary work since To Kill A Mocking Bird but it will vanish

into the Amazon mud.

Get these things right and, whether or not your book is great, it has a serious chance of becoming a best-seller.

To discover a wealth of further ‘here’s how you do it’ ideas that you can implement at once,

why not join us - without charge - at Writers’ Village Academy? I’d love to work with you

on your writing journey, one-to-one!

Discover more here:





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Ten Powerful Secrets of Best Selling Authors