What Counts as a Bestseller?

Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by crobertsbmw on Friday October 14, 2022 @04:28PM (#33208447)

I wrote a book, Computer Engineering for Babies. I’ve sold about 25k copies in the last 12 months, but I don’t have a publisher, a marketing team, or even an Amazon listing. I talked to a publisher once, they told me if you sell 10k books you can easily be classified as a best seller. But The NY Times, or anyone else, doesn’t care about some guy selling baby books out of his living room, and I don’t care enough about awards to try chasing them.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by bombcar on Friday October 14, 2022 @04:31PM (#33208474)

The "best selling" lists have some pretty "strict" criteria, and they're all kind of lame, even if arguably some are there to prevent "gaming" the system.

And "best selling" as a substitute for quality doesn't hold that well, either.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by PuppyTailWags on Friday October 14, 2022 @04:36PM (#33208528)

"Best selling" by the NYT has its own algorithm which weighs audiobooks, ebooks, indie vs big store sales, etc. all differently. Additionally I would suspect selling children's books would have to compete with school-sized purchases. 25k over a year is great, but in the realm of children's books you're dealing with Scholastic magazines book hawking to every school in the nation.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by listenallyall on Friday October 14, 2022 @05:19PM (#33208922)

> I don’t care enough about awards to try chasing them.

It's great if you're satisfied selling what you're selling, but placement on the NYT list is more than just an award, it's a huge marketing opportunity. Getting on the list could easily 5x your sales and revenue, and have publishers and booksellers knocking on your door instead of other way around.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by germinalphrase on Friday October 14, 2022 @05:31PM (#33209038)

Good work. How did you market your book?

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by crobertsbmw on Friday October 14, 2022 @07:47PM (#33210131)

Thanks! At first it was just a couple posts on Reddit and HN,m. Every once in a while someone will share it on Twitter or something and it will blow up for a few days. I’m spending a few hundred dollars a day on paid ads right now, but even that ebbs and flows on wether it’s profitable.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by smegsicle on Friday October 14, 2022 @11:38PM (#33211499)

> HN,m

what's the 'm' ? typo?

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by nicoburns on Friday October 14, 2022 @08:23PM (#33210344)

> I don’t have a publisher, a marketing team, or even an Amazon listing

Interesting, how do get them manufactured? I guess there are printing companies that operate separately from publishers?

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by phpthrowaway99 on Friday October 14, 2022 @09:26PM (#33210700)

There are countless self publishing companies, and while idk if it's still active, even Amazon had a try at this.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by eslaught on Saturday October 15, 2022 @01:27AM (#33212015)

Yes, Amazon still runs theirs. It's part of the KDP program now.

lulu.com is another relatively big one. (They have a nice service, Lulu Xpress, if you just want to print copies for personal use.)

And then there is the other monolith, IngramSpark.

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Re:What Counts as a Bestseller? by tshell on Friday October 14, 2022 @11:31PM (#33211461)

I just got my copy a few weeks ago! My 14 month old loves it, though she hasn’t yet figured out the AND gate yet. :)

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