Does Bestseller Equal Quality

I read a blog post recently that talked about the importance of winning awards and making it to bestseller lists for indie authors. If I was still green around this ears to this reality called writing I think I would have said, “Sure that’s got to be right.” After a year or two feeling my way around the industry I don’t put too much emphasis on awards and bestsellers anymore.

I began to shrug my shoulders at bestseller lists after I learned the creative ways that people became bestsellers. First there were books that listed themselves as Amazon Bestsellers. The interesting thing about being an Amazon Bestseller is that, based on highly specific categorization, bestsellers might only be competing with a dozen books for the title. I also discovered another tactic authors use to make the Amazon Bestseller List. An extremely aggressive book launch is orchestrated. Tons of copies are given away in order to land reviews prior to a book’s release date. Then for a brief period of time the book is sold at a significant discount to entice massive sales during that specific time frame. If all goes to plan at the end of the book launch the author has a “Bestseller” on their hands.

I now find the idea of the bestseller to be insulting to the intelligence of prospective readers. Bestseller lists used to be a sign of quality. If you created quality work then people were willing to spend the money to see what you had to say, and if enough people cared then you made the bestseller list. However, when an author is not simply capable, but is willing to discount his work to less than the value of a candy bar simply  to call himself a bestselling author in perpetuity I have to scream foul. I scream foul because said author hasn’t written a bestseller. Said author has simply found a way to manipulate the system. Manipulating the system isn’t a monopoly that began with creative authors who found a loophole in Amazon’s system. The original manipulation began with publishers who had bottomless budgets, and their bankrolls determined the winners and losers.

Then there’s awards and competitions. I entered Average Joe’s Story Quest for Confidence in one competition and it wound up being the runner up in the nonfiction category. I think there were fifteen to twenty entries in the category. All I could do was shrug because in judging creativity the value is subjective to the eye of the beholder. If you are being judged by someone who’s influenced by name dropping and your writing is void of celebrities, chances are you stand on shaky ground if your competition is writing about the nights he spent partying with the Rolling Stones.

Bestseller lists can be manipulated and awards are based on someone’s opinion, and yet we let these flawed systems of quality prediction influence our decision making. I hope Average Joe’s Story never makes a bestseller list or wins an award. I don’t ever want to think that the reason someone chose to read it was because of something as trivial as the word bestseller.

 

 © Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.