Where Do Bestsellers Come From?
I have been trying to answer this question for years. The only way I can begin to answer it is to
look at where some of the really popular books come from. In the late 1960s Richard Nelson Boles the author of What
Color Is Your Parachute was working for the United Ministries in Higher Education overseeing campus ministers in nine Western
States.
When a number of the ministers
begin to lose their jobs he started to ask questions and research ideas on what the ministers could do to regenerate their
careers. He typed up his ideas and turned out a photocopied manuscript titled What Color is Your Parachute.
These copies he passed out
to any minister who came to him for help. Rather than that being the end of the project it turned out to be the beginning.
Others came looking for copies of the book. He also received orders from the pentagon and large companies.
That's when Ten Speed Press
contacted him and wanted to publish the book. It was released in 1972.and has sold 20000a month for the past 25 years.
What can we learn from this?
The first one is that books that solve pressing problems generate their own audiences. The second is that word of mouth is
still your most effective advertising tool. Beyond that its usually hard to do much more.
