Making the List

Getting High

It’s a thrill to “make the list,” and to be able to proudly proclaim across the top of your book cover “New York Times Best Seller.” It is wonderful when your book pops up as a “top seller” with Amazon’s powerful marketing clout.

Sales rankings can change on a dime – just like the ups and downs of the stock market, not entirely predictable, though the tried and true reliables always seem to do well. A check of today’s best sellers has some newbies at the top – Andy Weir and Celeste Ng have a second book on the lists, helped no doubt by the resounding success of their first book not so very long ago.

Andy Weir is a hero to all “first novelists” – The Martian (2011) was a hit as a book, and then a movie, with Matt Damon, no less. Congrats, Andy, good job! The list is well populated with the tried and true as well – Dan Brown, John Grisham, James Patterson, E L James, Nora Roberts. Seven men, six women, ages 60 to 25, writing about murder and mayhem, love and romance, and who knows what all. How does an author get to the top? And a better question – and stay there?

“Develop a following,” is good advice; create a series, perfect a style. That’s the way to sell books. And keep writing.

That’s the plan.

Top Authors on the New York Times Best Selling List and/or  Amazon’s Most Sold List December 29, 2017

TOP TEN NEW YORK TIMES FICTION BOOKS REPORTING TODAY

https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/

  1. ORIGIN by Dan Brown. A symbology professor goes on a perilous quest with a beautiful museum director.
  2. THE ROOSTER BAR by John Grisham. Three students at a sleazy for-profit law school hope to expose the student-loan banker who runs it.
  3. THE SUN AND HER FLOWERS by Rupi Kaur.  A new collection of poetry from the author of “Milk and Honey.”
  4. THE PEOPLE VS. ALEX CROSS by James Patterson. Detective Cross takes on a case even though he has been suspended from the department and taken to federal court to stand trial on murder charges.
  5. MILK AND HONEY by Rupi Kaur. Poetic approaches to surviving adversity and loss.
  6. DARKER by E.L. James. Christian Grey’s tormented and difficult pursuit of Anastasia Steele is told from his perspective.
  7. THE MIDNIGHT LINE by Lee Child. Jack Reacher tracks down the owner of a pawned West Point class ring and stumbles upon a large criminal enterprise.
  8. ARTEMIS by Andy Weir. A small-time smuggler living in a lunar colony schemes to pay off an old debt by pulling off a challenging heist.
  9. YEAR ONE by Nora Roberts. When a pandemic strikes and the world spins into chaos, several travelers head west to find a new life.
  10. READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline. It’s 2044, life on a resource-depleted Earth has grown increasingly grim, and the key to a vast fortune is hidden in a virtual-reality world.

TOP TEN MOST SOLD AMAZON FICTION BOOKS REPORTING TODAY

https://www.amazon.com/charts/mostsold/fiction?

  1. Origin by Dan Brown.
  2. Artemis by Andy Weir.
  3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
  4. The Rooster Bar by John Grisham.
  5. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur.
  6. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
  7. The Midnight Line by Lee Child.
  8. Wonder by R J Palacio.
  9. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.
  10. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan.