What Does a "Bestselling Book" Mean Anymore?

In the shifting landscape of book publishing today, how helpful is the "bestselling book" stamp of approval? As authors face increasingly challenging obstacles to recognition (and sales), is bestseller status a shortcut to fame and fortune? Or is that prize even worth it? 

Come along as we discuss:

• New York Times list is not just based on most copies sold.
• USA Today lists 150 titles without discrimination of type or category.
• Amazon's velocity-based algorithm is too easy to game. 
• BookScan sales data tracks legitimate sales but is unavailable for most authors.

Bottom line: bestseller lists often reflect manufactured buzz rather than book quality or even highest sales. And many publishing professionals don't consider bestsellers to be the best books. So what are the alternatives to focusing on bestseller lists for authors?

Publishing Disrupted is at PublishingDisrupted.substack.com

Mick Silva is at MickSilvaEditing.substack.com

David Morris is at dvdmorris.substack.com, LakeDriveBooks.com, and Hyponymous.com.

Transcript

Mick 0:00

Hey everybody, this is Publishing Disrupted. I'm editor Mick Silva.

David 0:05

And I am publisher and literary agent David Morris.

Mick 0:09

And we are here exploring the ways in which book publishing is changing and how writers can best meet the challenge. So with the recent changes in publishing overall in the industry have been very disruptive and continue to disrupt book publishing. We think books still matter. So we need to talk about the ways that things are changing. And of course, the biggest shift that we've undergone has gone from being in traditional publishing to now going mostly independent publishing. and then also from evangelical and Christian, now basically Christian, not religious, and progressive publishing. So we're making those shifts personally, but also professionally, and

David 0:51

lots of challenges. Dealing with all the new balance. And opportunities. Yeah, yeah. For authors. So you're dealing with, what's been going on with you lately?

Mick 1:00

Yeah, I've been, of course, within that shift, been trying to explain that in ways, and you can use a lot of words. or you can try to do the I like the Christian but not religious thing, because just growing up in this culture, of course, as we did, I mean, you're going to end up with a little bit of these Christian ideals and values. And, you know, we're still within that world. But I definitely don't like putting it in a box or saying that this is how we have to do religion or do business or any of that anymore. So recently I've been having these these conversations more and more especially with coaching clients just to try to explain you know are we are we still doing uh what yes christian publishing um

David 1:48

yeah so you've had that like in the last oh yeah recently yesterday oh okay what was the conversation about yesterday

Mick 1:55

uh because it was coaching we were talking about uh you know which publishers ultimately are we going to be looking to pitch and And of course that, that then interprets how you form the proposal and what you're putting in there and what's the attraction, what's the major attraction to the book. And

David 2:14

it's not an easy answer.

Mick 2:15

It's really not. And it's not even a spiritual book, really. I mean, it's got spiritual themes, but because it's a personal story, you know, it dips into some of that and some of the history, of course, the background. And typically that's what the story involves is they're coming out of a more traditional or even fundamentalist background. And so they want to give that language. But it if you're coming out of that, of course, you don't want them want to go right back into the fire at a Christian publisher because they're not going to understand how to sell that book. Uh, so of course, and you're having this conversation too. It's one of the major, I guess, shifts that,

The "Christian-but-not-Religious" shift

Mick 2:48

that we've undergone. We don't want, no longer want to be identified as strictly evangelical Christians. And so what does that mean? How do you then explain, well, it's Christian or it's progressive or, uh, you know, I've been using just independent because it's a it's a catch-all kind of yeah but i mean that that applies to a lot of different things not just spirituality

David 3:11

yeah so anyway it does feel more neutral though which is nice yeah yeah exactly right it kind of says more about um what does independent mean what means you're being innovative yeah yeah

Mick 3:22

probably well and as opposed to maybe traditional or conventional i suppose uh you know a a good sort of barometer of this is, are we looking for, so in traditional publishing, obviously, it's royalty-based. Right. They're buying rights to the material. Right. And they're paying your royalty in return. Right. On your own material. And so that that then is a different prospect than if you are, you know, let's say a hybrid. I mean, you do contracts and you pay a royalty as well. But a lot of self-publishing and independent publishing is not royalty based publishing. It's just you print the books and you get all of the profit off the revenue. Right. Yeah. I've been trying to explain to just sort of side note with kdp if you publish on amazon exclusively they are owning the rights to that material and they're paying you a royalty

David 4:18

yeah just just the distribution rights but not the intellectual property right of course

Mick 4:24

yeah yeah that's that's still yours you own the copyright on your

David 4:27

material they have two levels or it can be exclusive to amazon all retailers or it can be a level where it's just Amazon and then you find some other way to get the books to other retailers. Usually people use Ingram or IngramSpark.

Mick 4:43

And that's the KDP where it's exclusive to Amazon. Right. Kindle Direct Publishing.

David 4:51

Which is confusing as well. It is. It's very confusing. The fact that they use the word Kindle but it's for print books too. Exactly. I don't know why they don't work

Mick 4:58

on that. Print on demand books made based off of a Kindle, uh, ID, uh, I guess, uh, electronic,

David 5:06

right. But we digress. Sorry.

Mick 5:08

Yeah. Sorry. Um, so yeah, those are the conversations I'm increasingly having. They're not fun necessarily. It's like informational.

David 5:16

Yeah. People need it. But it's sort of like, how do you chart a course now? Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, how do you do this? What does it look like? Yeah. Um, you know, and you're talking about the, the bigger nuance of, uh, uh, of the intersection between commerce and culture. And historically, our options have been limited to, you work with a religious publisher who knows how to help you market that book, how to distribute that book. They know where to put the book for that. Or you work with a broad market publisher that knows how to do what they do, but they don't always understand Right. A religious reader or a religious marketplace or a religious distribution channel or religious marketing outlets. Exactly.

Mick 6:08

Generally, in our experience, you'd have conversations with people on the sales team or even in marketing. They're not thin slicing that audience very much. It's going to go to churches.

David 6:19

Thin slicing meaning?

Mick 6:21

Like what specific or particular. Like if you say it's going to go to churches and it's going to sell in church books, stories what type of churches is that you know and are we talking mega churches because that's ideal that's what they'd love it to be but typically no it's it's going to a specific subset yeah of christians or of that audience

Getting specific about audience

Mick 6:42

and so i think the the just get more specific and nuanced about the audience we've been talking a lot about that on this podcast so there's less of a push for going after a mainstream audience when you are publishing independent. And much more in identifying as clearly as possible that sort of subculture that you're aiming toward. Or maybe it's a bunch of subcultures that overlap in some ways. And that's your unique tribe, I guess.

David 7:13

And I do think if you're coming from a spiritual point of view, one argument would be that let's just try to work with broad market publishers. Maybe they don't quite understand my audience. Maybe they don't know where the audience lives and how to reach them per se, but they maybe can learn a little bit about it. But there's a certain point of diminishing returns there where you're asking an entire publishing team to come along with you and understand what it is. that you're trying to write and get out there. And that includes the sales team, the PR team, not just the marketers, not just the people doing the ads. And if they don't have a lot of other authors like you, that tells you something. So then there's like the other box to be in is the evangelical Christian publishing box or maybe even the mainline religious publishers, all of which can be really churchy. Right. And they might know your audience, but you're bringing a message that most of those people that they know don't necessarily want to hear. Yes. So yeah, that's the disruption.

Mick 8:31

Yeah, exactly. You're trying to get out of a box and largely... the box still exists. That's the tension. How do you fit in this box? Right. Like, well, we don't. Right, right. So, right. And I think a lot of the authors that I've generally been talking to, I mean, even when I was a representative of a Christian publisher for, you know, 20, 20 plus years, we'd still be talking about how do you get outside of or reach readers beyond the basic sales channels that the Christian publisher has. So I don't think that's anything new. It makes it hard to be a coach, doesn't it? It does. And I want to say, yes, of course, you can reach those readers. But you're on your own to do it. And in so many ways, it's really incumbent on you to start building that platform that then reaches the readers you want to reach. That's social media. That's even setting up your Amazon A-plus author page.

David 9:33

It was rebranded to Amagon. Amagon. You were about to say Amagon. I was going to say Amagon. They did rebrand it. Thank God.

Mick 9:38

Armagon.

David 9:39

We're getting so tired of that. The Borg is assimilating us all. I can't even think about the actual river anymore. No.

Mick 9:46

Well, and Amazon doesn't even have books mostly anymore. No. I know. But, but yeah, no, we're, we're digressing. I, I would love to know what, what, what are you dealing with, I guess, day to day as a publisher?

David 10:02

Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

It's getting harder to scale

David 10:05

some of those same, some of those same dynamics, there's just, it's just not as easy to scale. Yeah. Yeah. And there's no easy scaling answer there to reach a big audience. I actually started to listen to the audio book of Malcolm Gladwell's new book called uh the revenge of the tipping point the tipping point was the book that he first became famous right 25 years ago and now he's done a whole new book sort of modifying or upgrading those theories awesome and um needed he does put forth i have to admit though i mean maybe i've just changed in my way of looking at things but man he goes on way too much about the stories which are really intriguing i

Mick 10:48

know

David 10:49

but the analysis of like yeah So, so far, you know, where I must be like, I don't know how many pages in on the audio book, but I'm, I'm a ways in and I've been subjected to a number of really interesting sounding stories that you need to know about. And, and I also kind of wonder where did you get those stories to like this anyway. Yeah. But, um, uh, very little, very little has been said about things like, uh, the super spreader idea of like, how do you, how do you, how do you take some, some cultural thing and it turns into, or, uh, or some sort of idea or action or philosophy, and suddenly everybody wants to do it. But there is a fair amount of, I think, human psychology of fear of missing out or wanting to be in the in crowd. But we're way in, and we've talked about three or four different amazing historical stories, and it's like, well, start working on the theory a little bit more here. But I'm sorry, now I digress. But I think that's the challenge, is to find how do you... find that super spreader for a book these days that's that's the hard part um but you know so we're being scrappy and we're doing things so so this morning actually i'll i will plug um we um we started a kickstarter campaign for um Melissa Doogie Spires' book, Holy Disobedience, Sex, Sin, and Shame in the Biggest Church No One Knows. Wow. She grew up Seventh-day Adventist, and it is quite the revealing memoir, both in terms of what goes on in these strict... cultural cliques like the Seventh-day Adventist Church that are really huge globally, not just domestically, but also the length to which we go to free ourselves. and to find freedom and to find out who we are on the other side of that freedom. And it's quite the story. I will just say that the word as I was reading the manuscript that came to my mind was exorcism. To me, that's what the book was. She doesn't use that word. That's something that, you know, it's like... you've got to go through some difficult stuff to get to that other side. Yeah. And it's not just, it's not always constructive or healthy and you may think you're not make it through. Right. Um, and, and it's not like you have to force that experience, but that it, it will be the experience. And, um, I think that's, It doesn't sound like a book you want to read, but it's actually a real book. It's an authentic book. It's telling a real story. So I'm really excited about that. We've already got some backers even already this morning. Nice. We're trying to reach a certain goal. And it gets to our topic because... We're trying to be independent and innovative. Yeah, okay, we're begging for

What it costs to publish now

David 13:46

money. Okay, there's no shame in asking for money for these kinds of things.

Mick 13:50

It's important.

David 13:51

It costs real dollars. I mean, thousands of dollars to publish a book. And we're talking about professional editing, design, composition, professional proofreading, professional publishing process and discipline. We've got all that in what we do. And that's like $7,500 or $10,000. That's doing it. It took me a while to even get myself to get my head around it. Cause I never really thought about it that way as a long time publishing professional. Yeah. Um, but that's, that is what it is. And you know, publishers have big bank accounts and they are, they are out there speculating on the different authors that they acquire. And they, they completely expect a lot of authors that you, that you might want to get published with so-and-so publisher, but they, that publisher's confidence that your book is gonna work, but let's get real. It's only so high. And so, you know, As a startup publisher, you can't just go throwing around $10,000 on like six or 12 books a year. That adds up. So we need to find financing for those books. We do reward the authors better. And this is one of the beautiful things about this. I have to figure out a way to talk about it more and better. And that is for an author who's on the margins, who's been oppressed, who's been marginalized, who's been beaten down, who's not been listened to, for them to be, first off, they're the ones who actually have better insight on theology and religion. They understand more. And so you want to be listening to what they have to say. Excuse me. So if you can participate in a program where you're helping raise money for that author, and then, so then they don't go in the hole at all, or the publisher doesn't go in the hole, if no one goes in the hole for the book, and then there's a bigger royalty going to that author, and the book works, this is a thing of beauty. And I think a lot of authors should be more interested in hybrid publishers because of what you can accomplish. And if you feel like, well, taking money to publish my book kind of sort of limits Or what's the right word I'm trying to say? It kind of brings it down the legitimacy. It delegitimizes the book. I think you've got to get past that. That's a scarcity mindset. That's not an abundance mindset. Absolutely. And I think that's because I'm super excited about what this means for certain authors to be able to pull off this kind of a thing, if we can do it, is just so, so, so powerful. It can be so powerful. Right. Yeah. So I get pretty animated.

Mick 16:40

No, it's exciting. And I think it is an opportunity that we need to just recognize and take some of the assumptions off of it that say, well, that's vanity press if you're paying for your own publishing. Right. That's not legitimate because someone else didn't choose you. And that still goes on, that kind of publishing. Yeah. I mean, it's not as though you're not also being very selective in who you publish and who you talk to. It's not just show up with the money and... you get a book. I do know plenty of those outfits and they exist. They make a lot of like very strong promises to readers or to authors.

David 17:19

And they try to make it look very legitimate too. Well,

Mick 17:21

sure. And sometimes it looks more legitimate because they're showing up with, you know, their whole team and, Oh yeah, we have all these people who are going to help you with your book. And really it's, well, it's pay or play $50,000 minimum for some of these folks. And even more.

David 17:38

Oh man, I'm, heard it go higher than 50, but I have heard

Mick 17:41

50. Yeah, I know. I have. And we know a lot of the people who work with these outfits. And they come from a traditional mindset, and so they're looking for a particular dollar amount for any projects they work on.

David 17:54

I mean, it's expensive. I mean, the $10,000 quote doesn't even count my overhead.

Mick 17:59

$10,000 is kind of small, actually. I would expect $20,000, $25,000. I mean, when you're looking at everything. And you're not even counting soft costs of all the time and effort you put in after the book releases. But yeah, there's just a lot of moving pieces. Some of the disruption is positive and some is negative. And I think we like to talk about you know, the positive, but a lot of the negative I'm seeing too is just that there's so much disruption, you don't even know what to trust anymore. I mean, as an author, coming to the book publishing industry and saying, I want to have my book published, There's so much options that you just don't even know. Yeah. And so many

If old publishing is dead, what now?

Mick 18:41

options. And that feels very inhibiting. Um, I much prefer the old days of just giving your book to the publisher. They take care of mostly everything and sure. Give you a royalty and they own the rights, but it's like, at least they're doing the job that you don't really know how to do and don't want to do. Yeah. That, that is a nice concept. I like that model. It doesn't exist anymore. Even the big publishers will tell you that you have to sell your own books now. People don't want to hear from a marketer or a publicist.

David 19:15

And the publisher only did so much anyway.

Mick 19:17

Podcast hosts need people to be on their podcast, man. Who are they going to get? You know, it's you. You're the one who's selling the book. So you've got to get that figured out and change that concept first of all. So that's a conversation I have a lot with authors. It's just to kind of educate them on the reality of what it means to be published now It's a business prospect, yes. You don't have to look at it as a bloodless or crass. You can look at it as a positive thing to say, I'm getting my message out there. It's all on my shoulders. I do have partners in this enterprise, but hopefully they're good partners and I'm learning and I'm getting my word out there like we've been talking

David 19:56

about. And a robust business mindset about your publishing is not bloodless whatsoever. It's actually disciplined. It's actually mature. Exactly right. It's full of life. I think

Mick 20:05

of any other... outlet being a creative outlet that is well and even gardening I like to use gardening because it's like you learn about your plants and the soil and the sun and the water and all these elements that go together and

David 20:19

right you don't just throw the seed in the ground and go why didn't it grow do

Mick 20:22

you not want to learn about all that sure maybe you don't because you just like them to grow on their own but that doesn't happen you have to like nurture things you have to cultivate things you have to care more you have to be a caretaker and I think being a caretaker of your talent, of your creativity, is a much more, like you said, robust undertaking.

David 20:43

Caretaker of your creativity. Yeah,

Mick 20:45

yeah. Well, and you had an idea. I think one of the things that dovetails into this is the lack of understanding about, I guess, bestseller lists in general. We've talked about this, and I think the quick take on that is that they don't matter as much as they used to. I mean, really, did they ever is a good question, because At a certain point, maybe if everyone knows that this is the best book in the world and we have to read it, sure, that's going to get you to buy it. And I think that effect does play into it for the biggest books, maybe. Right. But by and large, being on a list doesn't mean what you think it means. You can buy your way onto some of these lists. There's, you know, all kinds of lists that say bestseller. I even see all the time on Amazon, if you're like the top seller in a particular category that nobody's ever heard of, you can say I'm the best selling in this category. It doesn't mean a whole lot, but does it get anyone to even look at the book or think it is great? I don't know. There's a lot of question about that. So I think you have much more knowledge about this in terms of like, what does it actually mean? Only so much, yeah. I mean, as a publisher, as an agent, does being on a bestseller list, I mean, let's say it's the New York Times list.

David 22:03

Yeah. Is that helpful? Oh, absolutely. If you can get on it. Yeah. Absolutely, I think it helps. I think the list, I think it kind of depends on whether the list gets in front of people. That's probably the main thing. You could even say you hit the New York Times bestseller list. That's a nice thing to be able to say, but what's really happening with that list that is helping get the book in front of people who you don't know? So people aren't reading print newspapers

Are bestseller lists helpful?

David 22:42

anymore. That's for sure. My mother still reads the Washington Post print, and she will see a bestseller list published there, which I think is they use the PW, the Publisher's Weekly List. Actually, I think they just reprint the PW list. So I think people being able to see a list helps if the media outlet is actually getting it in front of them, then it helps. But that's the question in today's digital marketplace when people aren't reading newspapers. And even your local online news website, you're not really going to it. People just aren't as informed, except for what they see on TV. And TV doesn't talk about bestseller lists. No, I

Mick 23:31

never see that.

David 23:32

So I think that's a big question. I mean, that's something to keep, like, let's keep this in perspective. What does it really mean? So what are the bestseller lists traditionally? It's New York Times. New York Times. USA Today is talked about a lot. Yep. Those are the bigger ones, maybe. The Publishers Weekly. list i think gets some traction because it's reprinted perhaps

Mick 23:51

journal have one i think

David 23:53

yep yeah and it's kind of a smaller one and they they also might be just simply reporting straight data sure um

Mick 24:01

like uh publishers weekly right i think that comes from book scan

David 24:04

it does let's talk about that but then there's also in the world we came from the evangelical book publishers association um list, the ECPA list. And supposedly that is aggregating cash register sales from Christian bookstores such as they are today. Yes, bookstores. Yeah, there's not that many of them. There's well under 1,000. So there's a question about

Mick 24:29

how meaningful that number actually is.

David 24:31

Right, right, right. And it's also within a certain subculture too. So what does that tell you? And a lot of those lists, that list actually tends to be dominated by the same books you're in. Oh, yeah. Like week in, week out. It's like, whoa. Top 10 doesn't change much. There's boundaries after 25 years. It's still there. Yeah. Five love languages, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Deeming love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Five love languages, yeah. All those books. That was there forever. The Shrack. Yeah. And, and I, so let's, a lot, so a lot of them, I don't know how the New York Times collects its data. It's probably using book scan data, but I think what's known about New York Times is that they do editorialize. They like say, well, we're not going to include certain kinds of books. We're not going to just publish. They have sort of a algorithm or something. Yeah. Well, and also

Mick 25:17

just. author visibility or, or,

David 25:21

yeah, I don't know. I'm not even sure. Like you can't, if you're a pastor and you're writing a book, it's not going to necessarily, and it's selling better than some of the ones that are on that list. It's not, they're not going to necessarily

Mick 25:30

include it. No, it is. I think it has to be in, you know, ABA bookstores. I think it's got to at least

David 25:36

have some sort of, yeah. Well, I think if it's strictly devotional and ministry-oriented, that they see that as a different...

Mick 25:44

Well, there's the religious list.

David 25:46

Yeah. I mean, we can only guess at what they're doing, but they don't include everything there. I remember that specifically when I worked at a large publisher. It's like, wow, that book sold a lot this week. Why didn't it hit the list at the New York Times? And typically... You know, we did the math. We figured it out. Yeah, how many books is that? It depends week to week on what the other books are doing. But it's

What makes a "bestseller?"

David 26:10

anywhere from, in my mind, it was anywhere from 8,000 to 13,000 books in one week. 8,000 to 13,000? 8,000 to 13,000 books. So

Mick 26:19

that's like a first tier book, like best of. Right, right.

David 26:25

Okay. Right.

Mick 26:27

I mean, that's pretty good.

David 26:28

Right, and that's pretty rare error. Whether that's good error or not, that's rare error. Sure.

Mick 26:34

Well, and even in the top 10, though, there's probably books that are selling fewer than that in terms of copies.

David 26:39

And I think they only list top, they only list 10, except in the advice how-to list, it's 15, I believe. And sometimes you see religious books pop up there a little bit more.

Mick 26:49

And this is kind of like added in for everything, audio, e-book.

David 26:54

They break it out. They break it out, yeah. They do like combined. Print and e-book. I don't think they necessarily include audio, but they have audio. I don't remember where it is. I always look at the nonfiction combined print and e-book number. That's what I usually look at if I'm looking at it. And so then there's, I think... Maybe the next best thing to talk about is the USA Today list because I think it's kind of an interesting list, mainly because it lists 150 titles. Yeah. And it doesn't discriminate in any way, shape or form. So you can see a book that's like $2.99. Yeah. And it may have had more unit sales than... maybe a more esteemed book or whatever. Right. Like it's just a little handbook about something. Yeah. And if suddenly it's there on the USA Today list. Okay. Right. At $2.99.

Mick 27:43

Yeah. I have seen stuff like comic books.

David 27:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's great. It's very democratic. It's very wide open. Yeah. It's 150 titles. Right.

Mick 27:52

So.

David 27:53

That's really, that's a real, I think that's a really good list in a way. Yeah. To sort of eyeball and see what's going on there.

Mick 27:59

Now, but most people will use the Amazon list. I

David 28:03

mean, that's what you hear referred to. Let's get to that in a second. Um, so, so most of these lists, not the Amazon list, but most of these lists are using book scan data in one, in one way or another, which is sort of industry standard. And usually, hopefully they're just using it straight up, you know? Um, so, so book scan, it's had several different, um, parent companies. It's been bought and sold a few times at least in our careers. So I don't know what it's called now, but book scan is the, but, um, What they do is they have a list of book retailers, both online and physical. I don't know that they include the Christian stores. I'm not sure that they do, but maybe they do. Maybe they do some of them. Maybe the bigger chains. I think anything with

Mick 28:54

an ISBN is going to show

David 28:56

up there, right? Well, what's dependent is they have a... where the store probably has to pay to report. Okay, right. I know the publishers have to pay BookScan to get... Yeah, for access. It's called point-of-sale data. It's a whole separate data application, proprietary. So that's sometimes when we had POS data, we'd call it, at a big publisher. Some people would say, you're not supposed to share this, but often it did get shared. Yeah. But that's because it was paid for and it was proprietary to some extent. But you can see the number. Like if you go to the PW list, you can see the number of sales. There's a unit number that they give there for that week, I think. So they collect actual cash register sales. This is not the sales that the publisher has recorded. Those are invoiced sales. Um, what, what the POS point of sale data is for cash register or a sell through sales, actual customers have bought this book that week. So, you know, that's, that's actually pretty cool data. If it's, if it's, you know, if it's being widely reported and it does include the Amazon, it does include the Barnes and Noble online number. It does. That's the best of my knowledge. Yeah. Okay. Um, So I think that's why USA Today is really good. PW is really good. I would look at those lists. That's what I look at the most. I feel like if I want to look at New York Times it's more like somehow that's more what's going on in the world yeah it's a cultural flashpoint type yes so whatever they criteria they use to judge what's on there yeah in addition to the book scan data is is I think it's intriguing even if you may not agree with it sure yeah I would love to know I know I would love to know what what is the calculus maybe they used to publish that I don't remember but how they come up with

Mick 31:03

remembering some agent tried to break it down 10 things that they use Yeah.

David 31:08

Yeah. Maybe somebody has cracked that code.

Mick 31:11

Anyway,

David 31:12

but then there's, then there's the Amazon list and that's just, that's just data that they're using internal to Amazon. And as I understand it, it's, it's not just real sales. It's also like the ranking is velocity of sales. Oh, it might even be clicks to the, I don't even know who

What's "Amazon bestseller" mean?

David 31:34

knows it clicks to the page. I

Mick 31:36

thought it was actually like, Somebody bought it.

David 31:39

Yeah, it is more velocity-oriented in the algorithm than you might think. So I'll give you an example. It has a lot of different subcategories, which it creates its own, by the way. AI is creating those categories. Somebody is. It's crazy. And so you can get, like, there's a faith deconstruction category, which has actually grown. It's actually pretty well. In my mind, it's pretty well established at this point. You should see the books under there, too. It's interesting. Yeah, sure. But I think maybe at some point, it didn't take much to become... There's actually two ways of getting ranked there. You can be ranked as the overall ranking, but then there's also a new releases subset of rankings. And I published my own book, Lost Faith and Wandering Souls. And I was like, wow, I got a number one ranking. And then I went and I looked through the Amazon KDP interface that the book is published through. I logged in. I looked up the sales. I sold one copy. One copy. One copy. But it's a bestseller in the new release. And then I looked on my Instagram feed and my neighbor said, I bought your book.

Mick 33:00

Yeah,

David 33:00

yeah. Like, thanks. I got a number one badge in whatever it was. Actually, it was fundamentalism. They love handing

Mick 33:07

those out. I know, right.

David 33:09

So I think you really should be careful. It's fun to celebrate it. It looks good. But I would caution authors not to overstate those rankings. I've seen screenshots. Absolutely. I've seen, I've gone to author's websites and it's like a big, a big banner, you know, heading one size type saying number one bestseller on Amazon. It's like, oh, come on, you know?

Mick 33:35

And that's why I want to question this because like, is it really that meaningful? I would say the things that sell the book for me, and it's probably different for everybody. I'm not checking bestseller lists to see what I should be reading that week. And I'm in book publishing. So maybe some people do. And that's fine. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this. But I'm more interested if it had an impact on people I know. And then if they give a good review of it, they say, I need to read it. I mean, even that's going to take a few times to hear about that book. But primarily, it's other author's in that network. So I would argue that kind of endorsers or people that they're affiliated with are gonna get me to read that book. before whether it's a best. I honestly would prefer if it's not a bestseller in some ways. I kind of feel the same way about movies and music. If everybody is jumping on the bandwagon, that's me not want to. I still have that. It's the Gen

David 34:36

X thing. And that even goes on even in progressive and ex-evangelical circles. Sure, yeah. It's too

Mick 34:40

popular. I'm like, get away. So a lot of times I prefer to be in the obscurity area. And that to me says that maybe it's got some value and substantive. Because if it says it's popular, then it's probably not substantive. That's my mental calculus.

David 34:57

It's not often true. Authors start saying that. My book is not popular. You're going to want to read it. This was not a number one bestseller. This will never be a bestseller. That would get me to read it. A little reverse psychomacology. A

Mick 35:11

little bit. I feel like it needs to shift in this way and maybe that's a disruption that we can generate.

David 35:17

I want to play off that if I can a little bit. I do think that

Why are we chasing bestsellers?

David 35:22

in some ways it's not a healthy mindset to think about bestseller lists. Especially let's look at like the New York Times one or any sort of top 10 book scan based number. There's a lot of unknown socially constructed books culturally constructed factors at play there. And that gets back to what you're saying about you don't trust that. And I think that's wise. I would say that there's a lot of levers that do get pulled in publishing that you can manage, that you can manufacture a bestseller to some degree. Oh yeah. It is very speculative. I talk about how speculative it is and you can't predict the bestseller. I talk about that all the time, but there are things you can manage. There are reasons why. Now, now the thing about books is they, they can, they can take a life of their own. Yeah. Like why body keeps the score stays so high. It's, it's a very fat book. I can't imagine everybody's really reading it all the way through. There's, There's issues with the author that I think are pretty well known these days. And yet that book actually went up on the bestsellers pretty recently. And so I think they take a life of their own. And that's the tipping point Malcolm Gladwell talks about. Sure. But I think for a lot of them that are there, especially the ones that show up and they're only there for a couple weeks or one week, those have been sort of more manufactured into that space, whether it's the publisher's marketing, whether it's the popularity of the author's platform. I would be cautious about those. Sometimes it doesn't discriminate very well with how nasty a book might be politically or ideologically, even the New York Times. I think that's pretty interesting. Or even just

Mick 37:18

poorly researched or, you know, these arguments a lot of times that are being made. There's actually a podcast I started listening to, and I don't know it well enough to recommend it, but listening to it a few times, and it's talking about books and just popular books and how... either poorly researched they are, or blown out of proportion it is, that people are using ideas, a basic idea from a book, and making that sort of a big bandwagon then to start using their social media, or generating social media around. And they're not even close to the reality of what the numbers and data would show. And it's unable to be proven because, of course, here's a big book that was really popular that says the same thing.

David 38:09

There's a good example of that in Evangelical Christian Publishing. I won't name the book, but it was extremely popular a ways back. And I encountered it a lot, this book, professionally. Yeah. And it was, you know, I think it would be seen as, well, I'll stop there. But the thing that always surprised me was, like, I read the book, and I'm like, oh, I don't get why this is so popular. Not quite right. It's not that great. And then, like, especially in publishing, I would talk to other people about the book, and they're like, yeah, I don't... Yeah, what was the

Mick 38:54

attraction?

David 38:54

Yeah, I mean, the... An author might think, well, the publishers, they just never get it. Well, that's not true. I mean, this is like across the board. Everyday people who happen to be working in publishing saying, yeah, that book, it was a function of where we were culturally, how things were socially constructed within church communities at the time. It may even have been like the way media was working at the time. Sure. Um, so there, and some other factors. Yeah. Um, and, and that's, that's the amazing thing about like some bestsellers. It's like you open this book up and you're like, I don't know what the big deal is.

Mick 39:33

Right. Right. I do think that that, that brings up an interesting point too, in relation to the bestseller lists and particularly the New York times list. because that's the one that's so well known and it's proprietary and they're using some sort of weird algorithm to choose the authors that go on that list. Uh, I think there is just sort of this cultural flashpoint thing that we're all looking for. People call it the zeitgeist or, you know, whatever the, the big, uh, cultural talking point is the water cooler talk the next day and everyone wants to be in on it right you want to have your opinion formed already so you can show up and be the smartest person in the room or whatever right there's a lot of cultural cachet around being informed on these topics so if a book represents an idea or even an ideology I think a lot of times it's a stand-in for that cultural cachet that someone's trying to use

David 40:27

well like the prayer of Jabez would be one to talk about that was in the evangelical

Mick 40:30

world safe enough to mention First

David 40:32

off, it was a really short

Mick 40:33

book. It's a really crappy book, too. Yes. Yes. It's picking just one little verse out of this really obscure place. And

David 40:44

that was interesting because that one came on with such a flash and such a fury, and then it also completely died,

Mick 40:51

too.

Books create buzz for good or ill

Mick 40:52

It's prosperity gospel, basically.

David 40:54

I think it died. I don't know if many people are

Mick 40:55

still buying it. No, I can't imagine. Some must be. But because it's fitting a particular culture spiritual conversation that we're having about prosperity gospel, and it's basically validating and authenticating, quote unquote, the conversation, it's a very useful tool. And it's short. And it's by a well-known pastor who was focused on the family broadcast. So it's all been vetted by all of the powerful people. It becomes a talking point. And I think a lot of folks, that's what happens.

David 41:27

If you can get into that talking point, if you can become part of the buzz. Right, part of the buzz.

Mick 41:34

And that's what I'm trying to get away from a lot of times because I think The more that is the goal, the less it is actually a real substantive conversation that needs to be had.

David 41:47

Another way of saying this is just drawing from my experience too. When I first started working at a major evangelical publisher, one of the things that really surprised me was how much everybody focused on wanting to be on the New York Times bestseller list. I'm like, wait a minute, you guys are like evangelicals. You don't... You don't like what they publish at the New York Times. You don't like New Yorkers. You don't like the New York Times. They know that's

Mick 42:10

where the cultural cachet is.

David 42:12

Yeah. And they want it. Yeah. I thought that was really hypocritical. It was just outright hypocritical. That's how it struck

Mick 42:19

me. I mean, and of course, the counter argument that they'd always give you is that, well, we're selling Jesus. I mean, basically, it's the idea that, you know, you're giving God a platform. You're getting conversations out there. And I've told people this about the shack all the time. I don't like the person but a lot of people were talking about it. And it gave an opportunity to have a conversation that I think we needed to have.

David 42:40

Yeah, but that means your faith is about trying to sell yourself to others. It does mean that, yes. They don't want to look at that part, though. It's the argument of we need to convert everyone to Jesus at all costs, even if it means we... Yeah.

Mick 42:57

Yeah. Even if it means we're using a little bit of the

David 43:00

manipulation. It still struck me as just really like dissonance. Sure. Sure.

Mick 43:06

Well, then it chips away at your the authentic faith that we're all looking for.

David 43:09

Because you're still buying into their system. It

Mick 43:11

shouldn't need the New York Times list.

David 43:13

By wanting to be part of the New York Times list, you're buying into their system. Of course. Yes. If you think it's so if it's the world. Yeah. Yeah,

Mick 43:22

I absolutely agree. And I think that's where the bestseller lists are a disservice to all books because that's a very small subset. Right. And usually it's, it's pretty aberrant in terms of like what it's actually saying about a larger, like, like the body keeps the score that that's an idea. Right. arguably whose time has come, and we need to have that conversation. But the book itself represents something of an aberration of the actual psychology behind that idea. Right. Because if you talk to any professional psychologist what they think of that book, they would say the same thing I say about The Shack, which is it's a great book for having good conversations, but there are better books about that concept.

David 44:03

Yep. And that's the funny thing too. Like there's, there's better books and sometimes they came before that book, but that's the book that somehow took off.

Mick 44:10

Right. Yeah. And I guess I could sit here and grind my ax and be frustrated about it and say, you know, authors don't know what they're talking about. Or I could say, stop giving so much credit to the bestseller list. Let's look for the unique tribes that are platforming good books out there that you're never going to find if you don't get off those bestseller lists and start looking in your, I mean, just go to your library and ask what good books exist and go to your local bookstore and ask what books that they're interested in and I read those lists as much if not more than the bestseller lists because the ones that are produced anyway, because you're getting better recommendations.

David 44:50

Yeah, even your library's sort of new release list. Usually it can

Who to trust instead of list-makers

David 44:55

be pushed, yeah. Because it's not informed by the algorithm. It's more informed by what the librarians are. What they enjoyed. Or what people are actually checking out. Sure, yeah. Which arguably could be connected to the bestseller list. Yeah,

Mick 45:07

I like editor's picks. That's generally where I'm an editor. So, I mean, obviously, but it's what's well written. And what's well received and what's well reviewed. Local bookstores are good at that. What's well researched. Those are questions that you're not going to find on the bestseller list. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess ultimately I'm getting around to this idea of if we're able to independently build something that we want to be associated with. in this new disrupted publishing landscape, then we should be putting forth these, I guess, different ways to evaluate and maybe not confirm a book's value, but at least assess a book's value in alternative ways. And I would argue that the bestseller lists are one of the least effective and least meaningful ways to evaluate you know, say a book is good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's a shorthand in publishing for many years. Among editors, but among everybody who works on books, it's that if it was a bestseller or it was a popular book, it's generally not a book that people in publishing have enjoyed and said is a good book. They're going

David 46:32

to say, oh, yeah, well, that paid the bills that month. It's basically how we think of it. That's such a good thought and something for us to ponder Don't chase the best sellers. But also, how do we create a stamp of approval? Where do we seek stamps of approval? What are better ways to do that? And maybe not just what are out there as alternatives, but what could we even construct? I mean, I think of that more as being a publishing professional. Maybe we can find ways to construct new... New media that help us better understand. Like one of my biggest things, I know we need to wrap up, but there is not very much, there aren't very many media outlets for a ex-evangelical, post-evangelical progressive space there. I mean, there's some obvious ones to name, but it's just not very robust and there's not very much variety. There's not very much of a spectrum. And I mean, the thing is, there's not a lot of media outlets just for religious content in general, more properly considered. And then the progressive part of that is much smaller, just like progressive publishers are a lot smaller than the larger, much, much larger combined evangelical machine. So... So that's, that's something I feel like there needs to be an online, like one thing I worked on this project for a while with another person who actually worked on, who actually had started some online magazines, but I wouldn't, I think there's a need for an online magazine. That's more for this, the people who are deconstructing, there needs to be an online magazine. Yes. That's better tailored to them. And Christianity, the Christian century is not doing it. Right. Religion dispatches is too political. It's not doing it. Right. There's, there's a few other smaller. Yeah. Very specific kinds of outlets out there that aren't aggregating a big idea. Not that they couldn't do it.

Mick 48:27

I think any of those you mentioned. There could be a book review service that I think would be... useful, whether it's the Christian Century or Anglewood Review is one that I've been watching.

David 48:43

Right. It's a little bit more, though, elite. It's still mainstream. Elite Christian. Agreed. Thinking elite Christian that tends to be more centrist or even left or even rightist at times. Yeah. Or very seminarian-minded type mindset. Very much, yeah.

Mick 49:01

Well, and that's what you're going to get into, I think, a lot of times. Right. But yes, so alternate ways to judge a book's usefulness. And yeah, I think that that would be really helpful.

David 49:14

Well, we really carried on again. I

Mick 49:16

was going to say again, though, you mentioned some of the books you were enjoying, and I think maybe we should just start every podcast with like what we're reading and what we're enjoying, because that's definitely a way that I'm not expecting to move any needles, but that's a way that we can promote the books that are good, that we find good anyway. Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. All right. We'll come with our best books next week again and a new topic

David 49:40

to discuss. We'll actually have to read some things whatever you read already I know all the time I have to be able to just talk about some work books that's the only thing right yeah work related books yeah work related books yeah all right my friends thanks for being here we'll talk to you again later thank you all right