Recently, while reviewing my book, a question occurred to me: “How do you sell 100 million copies of a book? Is there a way to reverse engineer that kind of success?” because if we want to reach readers with our stories, we need to know how to sell books.
You are reading: How to sell a million books
In this post, we’ll take a look at what makes the best-selling books of all time so popular, and then look at how we can apply those lessons to our own writing.
“How do you sell 100 million copies of a book?” It’s an interesting question, right? one we’d all love to know the answer to.
Of course, to sell 100 million copies of any book, you need to have marketing, PR, a sales team, etc. But not even the best team of marketing geniuses could make a bad book sell 100 million copies.
however, writing a great book is not enough
I found that there are only nine books that have sold more than 100 million copies (excluding religious, ideological, philosophical or political books), and in reviewing them, I discovered that they have five criteria in common.
They are not quite rules, because not all nine books follow them. in fact, only one of the five criteria is found in all nine books.
however, if you want to know how to sell books, and sell many copies of your books, you should consider paying attention to each of them.
the best selling books of all time
First, what are the best-selling books of all time? Here they are, in order, from Wikipedia’s complete list of the best-selling books of all time.
- don quixote by miguel de cervantes
- a tale of two cities by charles dickens
- the alchemist by paolo coelho
- the little prince by antoine de saint-exupéry
- harry potter and the philosopher’s stone by j.k. rowling
- the hobbit of j. r. r. tolkien
- and then there was none by agatha christie
- cao xueqin’s dream of the red chamber
- lewis carroll’s alice in wonderland
- the magical world of harry potter and the muggle world
- the planet of the little prince b612
- dreams of the celestial world of the red chamber
- a story about stable two-city london versus revolutionary paris
- and then there was no strange island where murderers are brought to justice
- don quixote lives in a fantasy world of his own imagination, just as the rest of the characters live in the real world.
- the alchemist’s boy is a normal shepherd, until he Travel to Egypt and enter the mystical world of the Alchemist.
- The Hobbit exists entirely in a fantasy world. however, there is still a great contrast between the world of the hobbits and the world of the dwarves, the first comfortable and very normal and the second full of treasures, dragons and adventures.
- usually begins with a loss (often the death of parents).
- the protagonist reaches maturity and acceptance by society, but only after going through many conflicts.
- often there is some sort of mentor to help guide the protagonist on their journey.
have you read all this? does any surprise you? let me know in the comments.
it doesn’t matter if you want to be a bestseller
But before we talk about what kinds of stories will sell a lot of copies, let’s talk about what won’t help sell your book.
sex doesn’t sell.
To sell 100,000,000 copies of your book, you don’t need to write about sex. That might help your otherwise middle-ranked book sell more copies, but it won’t get you on the list on its own.
In fact, only three of the books on the top nine bestseller list have any romantic elements, and one of them is about an old man!
realism needs to become realistic.
sadly, for all realists out there, one could only argue that a book about this is part of the realist genre. the rest all have elements of the fantastic.
why so serious?
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I majored in English and spent my career in high school and college, and even afterward, I studied serious books. however, none of the books I studied in school end up on this list.
It’s not that serious literature isn’t important. it just doesn’t have a big enough audience to sell 100 million copies or more.
5 “rules” for writing a book that can sell 100 million copies
how do you write a bestseller, no, a mega bestseller? What do these nine books have in common?
As I took a closer look at the nine books on the bestseller list, I realized there are five criteria they all have in common:
1. write in english
Five of the nine books were originally written in English. each of the other four was written in a different language: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Mandarin Chinese, making English by far the most popular language for mega best sellers.
This is not fair, of course.
In a just world, a book would have an equal chance of becoming popular whether it was written in Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, or any other language. but that is not what has happened in this list.
Unfortunately, if you don’t speak English or write in another language, following this “rule” requires a lot of effort. some people are born with this advantage, but others have to work harder to achieve it.
That said, this is the most tenuous of the five “rules” and probably won’t last long. English is only the third most spoken language in the world, behind Chinese and Spanish. I think someday soon there will be more best-selling books written by non-English speakers than English books.
2. write for children or young adults
Five of the nine mega-bestsellers were written for children or young adults (and one could argue that six are, since the protagonist of the red-camera dream begins the story as a young adult).
Alice is seven years old. the little prince is a child. The protagonist of The Alchemist, Santiago, is repeatedly called “El Nino.” Harry Potter is eleven in Philosopher’s Stone. Bilbo Baggins, in The Hobbit, is fifty years old, but first, he is a young man of fifty, and second, Tolkien intentionally wrote The Hobbit as a bedtime story for his three young sons.
If you want to sell 100 million copies of your book, write for children.
3. set your story in two worlds
This was the most surprising and important conclusion I came to while researching this list. here’s why:
nine of nine novels have two different worlds.
This is most evident in Alice in Wonderland, which invented a whole vocabulary to talk about alternate dimensions. Going “down the rabbit hole” has become a cliché to enter a second world, and it all started with Lewis Carroll.
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many of the others have an equally obvious second world:
some of the others are less obvious, though still present:
Also, if you look at the books further down the all-time bestseller list, you’ll see that the vast majority of them have the same contrast.
4. use a whimsical tone
six out of nine of the best-selling books of all time have a whimsical tone.
And it makes sense, right? because books that take themselves too seriously exclude people. serious books are important, as are adult books. however, if you want to sell a lot of copies, you’ll be much more successful if you don’t take yourself too seriously.
5. write in the bildungsroman genre
as many as seven of these nine books are bildungsroman (depending on how you interpret them).
bildungsroman is a literary genre that basically means “coming of age” story. they are almost always stories about a hero who goes from innocence to experience.
some other characteristics of the genre:
Note that most fantasy novels are bildungsroman, but this genre also includes books outside the fantasy genre.
it’s not about selling 100 million copies
yes, it would be nice to sell 100 million copies of your book. of course you do.
However, the point is not to sell 100 million copies. is to write a book that brings meaning to the lives of its readers.
And if I’ve learned anything from studying these nine books, it’s that these five guidelines will help you write a book that connects with readers.
Now, start writing!
can you apply this to your own novels? let me know in the comments.
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