[Writing-Publishing] Profiting From the Perennial Top-seller Book
A true story about books that sell without advertising, and for years. Contrary book marketing based on quality writing.
Sure, I’ve been supporting my self for years from a handful of books that sell every single month. Non-fiction paperbacks. In two dis-related genres. And all they had in common is that they were outliers. Seemingly.
A couple of years ago, I tried an experiment to see if I could duplicate what seemed to work with these. And it was time to check in - yes, I had created yet another perennial top-selling book.
Non-Fiction paperback - check.
Had a catchy title, "Farm Less, Profit More". A subtitle: Lessons Learned in Regenerative Grazing. So there's some keywords there - and fits the copywriting advice to make your headline arouse curiosity and at the same time narrow down the audience to people who want to buy.
And that's the three things I knew worked for both of these other books: category/genre, title, keywords. And the inside was a story that transported the reader (that 10% called the "Look Inside").
The book itself was written to fill a certain need - to reach a certain reader: whoever was going to take over my work in running this place. I'd accumulated a wealth of knowledge specific to this farm, it's weather, and raising cattle with very low inputs here. Someone would need to know what I did. An operating manual for farming this place.
So I sat about writing it as best I could, adding on another chapter when I'd said all I needed to do next was… and something else had come up. So I wrote that answer down.
I kept at it until it was thick enough to fill a thin paperback. Because I've earned more income from paperbacks than ebooks, even in fiction. People like more content than little thin books that wind up on over-filled ereaders.
And all this got me going once I saw it was still selling a couple of years later. That's the test - perennial-selling books need to perform when you check in on them years later. Like it takes 3 years for the first good crop of asparagus, then they keep producing from there on out. Books just give you a faster harvest right out of the gate. But perennial means through the years.
It's the ideal to strive for. J. A. Konrath said that in 2010 about his ebooks - they had to be Damn Good Books to sell. But then he never elaborated such a book was.
I've been curious about what makes non-fiction paperbacks sell. And hit upon Walter S. Campbell's statement from his 1944 Writing Non-Fiction:
"Good books in this kind go on selling, year in, year out, long after novels and plays have lost their vogue and are forgotten.
"Any publisher will tell you that a book of non-fiction is an investment, which may go on paying royalties for fifty years; whereas a novel is a speculation that generally turns sour in a year's time. Writing non-fiction is not a gamble, but a business."
That is what a writer is in - a business of producing books. It's an ongoing activity that builds a legacy - since your name is on every book and you own those copyrights.
And if you want more money, you produce more well-written books.
Some have repetitively told me I needed to be running ads to get sales. That is more true for fiction ebooks than anywhere else. Because when you chase down their recommendations, it's all about getting readers to buy your fiction.
I've always resented ads, since they are generally so stupid and intrusive. (Just yesterday my wife and I were talking about a very funny Super Bowl ad. But neither of use could remember what company sponsored it.) I'm in the middle of reviewing the classic copywriting references, and by the end of it I'll have trained myself on what a good ad should be. For now we'll stick to what works: best category, cover, blurb, keywords, well-written first pages.
This book on Cattle Farming passed the test.
But it was another question along the sleuthing trail of what made a perennial-selling book. Before I put this next book out there, I wanted to be sure.
Before You Begin You Have Choices
I've elsewhere mentioned that Campbell said you have to make seven choices before you began to write: Subject, Reader, Model, Effect, Style, Market, Project.
And that really gets you into marketing early - you're writing for your market through these decisions.
Earlier than that, you should have chosen your "sweet spot" based on answering these questions:
1) What do you love to write - which is what you're interested in and what involves you emotionally?
2) What do you know about, your expertise, or your willingness to share your research-journey?
3) Would such a book fill a need that's waiting out there?
4) Are people buying such books?
You have to answer these four to determine what it's likely you're going to succeed at. And it explains how republishing public domain books fail - they might have sold once, but such titles may no longer be in vogue.
People like original books. Before you throw yourself into a few weeks or months of work, you should have an idea that it's going to sell. That's the point of having a business instead of a hobby.
Now, why do people like paperbacks and why do non-fiction paperbacks sell better than ebooks? Sure, there are all these surveys around. All I know is from my sales records. But further than this, there's an explanation from a 2017 K-lytics study about how Amazon displays their print books. See this graphic:
Amazon lumps all the various types together. If you go up top and find yourself in fiction books, you'll see most of these are sold as ebooks. Down from that, you'll see that non-fiction books tend to have a wider variety of book formats sold.
Non-fiction has been described as a silo-market - because people search for specific solutions, and tend to also buy several formats of a particular book so they can refer to them over and over.
Fiction has long been serving the avid readers who go through titles like breathing air. And see above, where Campbell says this is not a current phenomenon only developed in this Internet age. But it is easier to pay less for electronic versions and stack them up on your ereader with multiple gigabytes of storage - as well as your book distributor's cloud.
How to Outline and Build Your Non-Fiction Book
Once you've gotten through your questions and choices above, the next step is writing your Damn Good Book. And there are some pointers here.
Again, this leads right into your first 10% as part of your book marketing.
Fiction and copywriting both use the same writing devices as non-fiction. Go to the NYT bestseller lists and find those non-fiction books who have been on that list for literally years. You can assume that people haven't been running ads to keep their sales up. Sure, the NYT is an East Coast regional list, but still - there is something to that book we can study, even here in the Midwest.
Like Gladwell's "Outliers" - 483 weeks on the list between 2008 and 2020. That book is worth a study to learn the devices that author used to keep readers entranced.
But non-fiction, fiction, and copywriting all appeal to the emotions, and follow the Greek "3-Act Play" format. They each grab the reader and transport them immediately, never letting go until the last word - and leaving the reader wanting more.
That's the idea of using cliff-hangers in non-fiction, aka: suspense. One writing coach said this is the idea of question-answer-question as a model. Cliffhangers in general are an incomplete action or emotional sequence. You have to keep tuned in to find out what happens. Some discussion of various ways Gladwell used these devices is here. Yet another dissection is here.
Now, we're looking at Gladwell's finished work. When you're writing your own, a key step is to assemble the references that you use to build the world your describing. Who says what has to happen to make the changes needed to get the result you want? What were their books? What were the tests you made to verify their findings?
And also keep in mind simple story-building tools like the South Park Creators use - "And then, But...and so, Meanwhile...".
Another tool you can use is to describe your own journey in learning what you did. And this can go straight out to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, which is probably simplest described in Vogler's "The Writer's Journey". Or use South Park + Story Circles.
But we are getting into the weeds right now.
How To Use This?
Here I come full circle.
The five parts of no-advertising perennial-selling book marketing are:
Genre/sub-genre choice
Title and Sub-title
Cover
Blurb
Preview/Look Inside - First 10 percent.
Make those as high-quality and focuses as you can. Then the rest is whether your book delivers. The search engines will find the first five - that's your promotion.
And then spend the next few years getting more books out. Because you are planting perennials. They'll grow or not. And you can revive them by changing those five points above. Or not.
Maybe you want to update them with a second edition. Or build a series around them. Lots of choices at that point.
Well, I'm done here. I'll leave the rest to you. I've got to go and write/publish some more perennial top-sellers.
Good luck with yours as well.