How to write a bestseller

Scott McClellan's book on the Bush administration is embargoed until Monday but is already No. 1 in sales on Amazon. Every TV news reporter appears to have a review copy and not a one of them is observing the embargo. Within a couple of weeks the book will be atop the NY Times and other bestseller lists.

So far Pat Buchanan's book claiming Winston Churchill was responsible for Hitler's extermination of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals has not attained that lofty status. It may in time, considering Pat's bizarre theory.

It would seem that all we need is a scandal or to achieve a certain level of notoriety.

Gee, maybe if he'd been this forthcoming back when Bush was running for election..or when he was kicking off the war...it might have been a help.

Your odds of having a bestseller are much better if you're famous to begin with.

Sex and violence. Still sells. I just started a book by a best selling Kensington female author and it's pure porn--or as lin said before, and I paraphrase:

Porn when it's for men and erotic romance when for women.

That does it, I'm legally changing my name to Paris Hilton.

If you're into writing romance, that sells too. In fact, the statistics show that nearly 1 in 3 novels sold in the United States are romance novels. I'm not really into the genre, I prefer to write high fantasy, adventure fantasy, and sci-fi, but if romance is something you're into, go for it, there's big money to be made in that genre.

Nope, not my thing. Wish it were, though. Like you said, the authors who write romance are generally very successful.

Brenda,
some people write about romance while others live it. Now I know why you don't write about it?

Oh, Abe . . . how I wish!

sex and violence are a good combination for a best seller but the trouble I am hopelessly romantic and I am also inhibbited so it is difficult to write sex
padma

lin wrote:

That does it, I'm legally changing my name to Paris Hilton.

How ya doin' Paris, Warren Beatty here

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Scott McClellan's book on the Bush administration is embargoed until Monday but is already No. 1 in sales on Amazon. Every TV news reporter appears to have a review copy and not a one of them is observing the embargo. Within a couple of weeks the book will be atop the NY Times and other bestseller lists.

So far Pat Buchanan's book claiming Winston Churchill was responsible for Hitler's extermination of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals has not attained that lofty status. It may in time, considering Pat's bizarre theory.

Sounds like an extremely bizarre theory to me considering what he did for Britain in the war I'm not surprised Mr Buchanan hasn't attained a lofty status, is he a colonial by the way?

Pat Buchanan is a political pundit who makes the rounds of television news programs. He once was a flaming-hot Republican and a presidential candidate. Lately he seems to look more favorably upon Democrats. This may be a sneaky trick.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Pat Buchanan is a political pundit who makes
the rounds of television news programs. He once was a flaming-hot
Republican and a presidential candidate. Lately he seems to look more
favorably upon Democrats. This may be a sneaky trick.

Thanks again Dick he sounds like a typical sleazy politico, back over
the pond a few years back there was a report/article, though it quickly
disappeared that said it was Churchill who got the Japanese to bomb Pearl
Harbour as he couldn't get the USA to aid us in the war for the first 4
years probably because the Bush antecedents were selling steel via
Thyssen Steel to the nazi's for tanks and concentration camps. In fact
the Japanese Admiral said something rather strange after, it was
something like, 'Oops, I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant!' Not the
victory whoop of a surprise attack!

Makes me think back to the time when the war in Europe ended and I was transferred from the infantry to the military police and was stationed at what had been a Focke-Wulf aircraft factory. Not a single bomb fell on the factory producing planes for the war but across the river the residential areas of Bremerhaven had been wiped out. The plant is now an Airbus factory.
Guys who had fought in North Africa said the major cities had been annihilated but they never saw a Standard Oil facility that was even slightly damaged. The National Guard outfit I joined after the war had fought in the South Pacific. Those that had been there said that a Lever Brothers soap company plantation on one island had been marked off limits to both armies. Do your fighting elsewhere but don't mess with commerce. War is crazy.

You're right Dick, it is crazy.