Number One Bestseller? First, write for YOU

When I’m out buying books, I avoid any with ‘Number One Bestseller’ emblazoned across the front.  This isn’t (just) because I’m a horrible book snob.  It’s because I’ve found most of the Number One Bestsellers I’ve read to be dull and unmemorable.

I will never win a book award or write a Number One Bestseller of my own.

When you say something like that, it can sound like you’re just being defensive.  As though deep down, you don’t think you’re good enough to write a book that millions of people would pay to read.

But in my case it’s a simple admission.  If I don’t read Number One Bestsellers then it stands to reason that I won’t write one.  I don’t feel any pressure to write one, either, which is all kinds of marvellous.

That kind of pressure can put you off before you’ve written a single word.

Part of my work involves mentoring other writers.  Many will begin our first session by talking about potential book sales, or how to market the story they haven’t finished writing yet.  Some worry about negative reader feedback.

As a mentor, my job is to help people write what they want to write.  If that’s a Number One Bestseller, great.  There are detailed story templates and maps to follow.  There are tried-and-tested ways to portray characters, and well-trodden routes for the plot to diverge in.

If you don’t follow these templates, ways, and routes, getting a traditional publishing deal could be difficult (unless you’re a celebrity).

I’ve been to several talks by successful mainstream authors, many of whom have touched on not being able to write what they wanted to.

At one event, the author talked about having to shoehorn a love story into their latest (decidedly non-romantic) crime novel, at the publisher’s behest.  The book sold well, but a lot of readers didn’t like it.  Many online reviews mention the “silly” and “unneeded” love story that distracts from the otherwise compelling plot.

Advice for would-be novelists: readers can sniff out insincerity and inconsistency in a story. 

For example, I recently read a novel whose thirtysomething protagonist was actively childfree, which felt refreshing and positive.  But by the end of the story, the character had met and settled down with a partner who had their own children, eventually becoming a happy and fulfilled step-parent.

Not only did I feel cheated – the novel had been touted as an uplifting book for childfree women – but I strongly suspected that the author’s publisher had been behind that particular ending.  A happy childfree character who remains happily childfree just isn’t conventional, at least from a commercial fiction point-of-view.

As a reader, putting yourself first will help you think about the kind of story you really want to write.

If you constantly put yourself in the minds of unknown, unnamed readers, you won’t write from your heart.  You’ll write like an AI algorithm: programmed to reflect popular topics and trends that aren’t necessarily what you – and others – honestly think or feel.

My as-yet-unreleased novel has received a lot of feedback from kind test-readers.  Much of the critical feedback has made my book better.  Helpfully, some of it centred on how I could potentially make the story more commercial; more likely to be accepted by an agent and ‘properly’ published.

I’m not going to follow those particular suggestions, though.  Not because I think they’re wrong, but because the story would be different from the one that currently gives me goosebumps.

I want to write a book I love.  I trust myself enough to know that if I love it, others probably will, too.

For me, “others” doesn’t have to mean millions.  It doesn’t have to mean thousands.  Maybe not even hundreds, though that would be nice.  A book doesn’t have to sell bucketloads of copies to be good or meaningful.

The lovely thing about writing is, we get to tell the stories we want to tell.  If you don’t like the idea of writing just for yourself, having one ideal reader in mind can be extremely helpful.  Just try not to imagine swathes of people poring over your book in Waterstone’s.  It’s a surefire route to procrastination.

If you’d like some help planning your book, or you’d like to know how to sound more like yourself on the page, feel free to drop me a message!