How Not To Write A Best Seller
Everybody is obsessed with writing a bestseller. We want to write a bestseller for different reasons. Some want the status a chart-topping book gives them, others because they want to sell a vast amount of books and make money, , some want to establish authority in their industry and some long to make an impact with their words.
Somebody recently told me they want to write an award winning comedy sitcom.
I love that. I love the ambition. But there is an issue with that.
The problem with writing a bestseller or an award winning sitcom is that you have to rely on other people.
You rely on a person behind a keyboard to name your book a bestseller. That person might be working at the New York Times, and they decide if your book is good enough to be a bestseller. I understand they say there is a formula that is subjective and it’s based on sales etc, but again I know books that didn’t make that list because they are self published regardless of how many copies they sold.
That’s an external circumstance. We can only control what we do, how we react, and what we put out there.
I wrote a book called Not Another Pair of Shoes and it’s not a bestseller. It’s much better than a bestseller.
It’s endorsed by Seth Godin. I never expected in a million years to have my book endorsed by a marketing and business legend like Seth Godin.
The book helped a few business owners (large and small) understand the importance of brand purpose. A couple of them hired me and I helped them articulate their brand purpose.
There are books out there that are not bestsellers, but they made a huge impact on somebody’s life. There was an insight, there was an idea that helped the reader understand something or change their perspective.
David Goggins’ book, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds changed my life — I went from running 10km to 100km ultra marathons.
When I read his book years ago it wasn’t a bestseller at the time, but that doesn’t really matter.
It doesn’t matter, because if what you have to say can help someone change one thing about their life and improve it, they will appreciate it, and you will always be in their mind and heart because you helped them overcome it.
In fact, one of my favourite books is Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. The book is not a bestseller, but it helped millions of people. Every year, I reread his book because of how powerful the lessons he shares are.
I believe that if we focus on becoming bestsellers, we will never become great because we are looking only at the end result. But if we focus on writing a page every day, improving every day, and having the reader in mind then one day we might get to publish our book.
People might read it and love it. I remember watching an Instagram video from Ryan Holiday, the author of multiple bestsellers, including Ego Is The Enemy, receiving a call from his publisher and saying that his latest book made it to the list (I think New York Times or something like that). When he hung up, he said: “Ohh well, that’s good, but I need to keep working on my next book”.
It just reminds us that the most important thing is that we work on our craft, we focus on delivering value to the reader.
I don’t know how to write a bestseller but I do know that if I keep working on my craft, working on writing better, articulating better, storytelling better, my second book will be slightly better than my first, my third book will be better than my second and the list goes on.
This reminds me of a question someone asked Jerry Seinfeld in a club he was performing at: what tips did he have for a young comedian?
Seinfeld said the way to become a better comic was to create better jokes, and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. Then he went even more practical — he said to get a big wall calendar with a whole year on one page and hang it on a wall. The next step is to get a big red magic marker.
He said for each day that you do your writing, put a big red X over that day.
“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”
I actually implemented the same thing at home — I have one 2022 calendar and one 2023 calendar on the wall — unfortunately I broke the chain a couple of times but I’m working on not breaking it.
Over the years, I understood that the only thing that matters is what we do today, right now.
If we want to write a book, we have to write every day.
If we want to lose weight, we have to work out every day & eat healthily.
If we want to become the best at our craft — we need to learn and practice every day.
The only thing that matters is what we do today.
I don’t know of any authors that wrote bestsellers without writing a couple of books that didn’t make the list.
This reminded me of a video I watched with Ed Sheeran saying that he used to be a bad singer, he wasn’t that talented. And I love that video because it just shows how bad and NOT talented he was. The Ed Sheeran we know today practiced a lot (like a lot).
One of my favourite comedians, Nicky Glasser, once said in an interview that she worked for two years for one of her Netflix Specials! Two years for sixty-minute show.
We have to remind ourselves that we know well-known people in their careers TODAY. We know Michael Jordan today, NOT when he was practising every day behind closed doors. We know JK Rowling today, not when she was suffering as a single mother and writing on a train.
That’s why I made peace with myself and decided not to focus on the OUTCOME but focus on the process and teach myself how to love every day steps. Because the OUTCOME is a by-product of our daily actions.
For me the most important thing is sharing words and insights that can hopefully help someone, can inspire, can make a positive impact.
If 10 people read it and find it inspiring, that’s amazing, if 1 million people read it and find it interesting, amazing. If one of my future books becomes bestseller that’s just an added bonus.
