How to create a non-fiction bestseller

Yes, book sales are way down across the board in tech books (actually all books, but tech books especially), but that doesn't mean the market's gone. It does mean there are far fewer guarantees of success, though. Even those who still have tech jobs are probably having to pay for books out of their own pocket, unlike the days when employers let us login to Amazon to click and buy with abandon. So you can't just get something out there and expect it to sell, even if it is on the hottest topic, and even if you do have an established name and reputation, and even if your publisher is committed--with marketing bucks and a plan--to making a hit.

But what prompted me to write this is a disturbing trend toward viewing technical books as a crap shoot. A big gamble. You roll the dice and assume that most books won't be bestsellers, but hey--you might get lucky.

Luck has nothing to do with it!!

(Well, I'll qualify that: luck is a factor if you're writing about a new, unproven topic because you're trying to get a jump on the market, and you're betting on the fact that the topic/technology will take hold.)

First, a disclaimer for those who don't know me: I'm a relative newcomer to books, (two years), and what I'm about to say conflicts with what many of the most experienced people in this industry are suggesting. However, my partner Bert and I have five current bestsellers--which is extremely rare in the tech book world today--and all of these books are still in their first editions (correction, we just released a second edition of one of our books (Head First Java), and it's just starting to show up in bestseller lists, so temporarily at least, we have six bestsellers, although the second edition will eventually cause the first edition to drop out).

In fact, every book we've put out has been an instant bestseller, and taken over the top slot in its category. But that's not the amazing part. The amazing part is that we're not good writers, and we aren't established "names". But we refuse to believe that we just keep getting ridiculously lucky. We're making our living on this, so we can't afford to leave it to chance. We believe there's a formula, and that almost anyone can follow it. Oh yes, one more disclaimer: the word "bestseller" doesn't necessarily mean "big bucks", because the total size of the market has dropped so low. (I'll say a little more on the numbers later.) But a "bestseller" today does mean the difference between a book that doesn't even earn back its advance, and one that gives you and your publisher a nice steady source of income long after you've finished it and moved on to something else.

The formula?
It's multi-part. What to do and what not to do.

First, don't listen to this advice from Dave Taylor (although you should listen to virtually everything else he says... they guys knows frickin' everything about everything, and has written way more books than we have. This is the only area where I violently disagree with his advice):

"...don't go into writing a technical book with the expectation that you'll make any money. ... unlike the heyday of the late 1990's, a technical book that sells 5,000 copies is considered a success in the industry today. So why write a technical book? One good reason is because it's a great calling card, a demonstration that you're a thought leader in your field and an expert on the subject."

I hear this same thing everywhere from virtually every other tech book author I know, see, or read about. It's a trap! I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try...

1) It's unethical.

Unless you're self-publishing, you are risking your time (and opportunity costs) while your publisher is risking real money. Your publisher is not in business solely to help you pursue your career goals and build a better resume. Would you willingly and enthusiastically go into business with someone who said, "well, it's not like it's going to make any money, but at least it'll be good on my resume."? But that's what you're asking your publisher to do. And believe me, the downturn has hurt these folks hard. Our main publisher is O'Reilly, and we feel like we're in a partnership with them. We want them to do well because it benefits everyone. They're a fabulous, innovative publisher interested in getting knowledge from one person and spreading/sharing it to others. I believe that doing a book with the attitude that "it isn't going to make money, but it'll help me" is taking advantage of the publisher. There are lots of people at O'Reilly we care about who have jobs they'd like to keep. (Same with Osborne/McGraw-Hill, who published our very first book.)

But let's say you don't care about the publisher, and maybe you've even heard they have a reputation for ripping people off at every turn. That's not our view, but it might be valid for publishers we don't know anything about. So there's a far more important reason to not have this attitude, and it's the one that affects you the most:

2) It's self-fulfilling.

If you go in with the attitude that you're doing it solely for your reputation, and not to have it earn out, it dramatically increases the chances that this is exactly what you'll get. A book that doesn't (or barely) earns back its advance. We've met many tech book authors who say they've written multiple books that have never earned back their advance. That is beyond our comprehension. Given that these folks usually have way more real talent than we do, what's the difference? For one thing, we hadn't actually heard that advice when we started. We were too ignorant to know that this is supposedly the reality, so we went in with the attitude of, "OK, we plan on earning back our advance and having this book do well, so what can we do to help guarantee that this happens?" This is dramatically different from asking, "I can't expect this to make money, so what can I do to make sure it helps my career/reputation.?"

We asked a different question, and got a different answer.

But there's more to it than that. It's not just that doing-it-for-the-resume isn't as likely to produce a successful book... writing a book with the motivation of enhancing your reputation is more likely to HURT the book. I won't go into all the details, but I said a lot about this in an earlier post, Users Shouldn't Think About YOU. The main problem is this: the more focused you are on demonstrating how smart YOU are, the less likely you are to help the READER feel/become smart. And that's a formula for hurting sales. The more you make the book about how much you know, the less you have something the reader can benefit from. We write our books from virtually the opposite perspective--we don't care what they think about us. All we care about is that they have an "I Rule!" experience, and that can come only from them truly learning and understanding in a meaningful, efficient, and enjoyable way. We care about their life, more than we care about anything else. And that is the formula.

The downside (if you care about it) is that approaching books this way won't do as much for your reputation. On any given day, we usually have five of the top ten bestselling Java books. On many days, we have the top five bestselling Java books. Yet, virtually nobody in the Java world thinks of us as The Java Experts. No, they think of us as the people who've written the books that have helped me learn this well, and actually made it easier and even enjoyable... " They don't think of us as the experts. But they thank us for helping THEM become experts. And that's the rest of the formula.

Because when they start talking, and they will, they'll tell their friends, co-workers, and everyone else they talk to online that they know more because of your book. And that carries a lot more weight than telling their friends that you, the author, sure know your stuff.

So here's the formula:

The Author Kicks Ass: The book might earn out.

The Reader Kicks Ass: Bestseller.

Have I oversimplified? Of course. But not as much as you might think. I will put some assumptions/qualifiers on this just for completness:

1) The topic must be of interest to enough people.
I can't expect to earn out on a book about "Blogging to improve your bowling scores." (although Robert Scoble just might be able to pull that one off. The rest of us couldn't : )

2) The publisher keeps the book available.
Besides the authors who keep claiming you can't expect to have a bestseller, I also disagree with publishers who claim that a book's success today is about the publisher's marketing reach combined with the author's following. That can help, sure, but you can see from my graphic that I put those things on the weakest end of the factors contributing to a bestseller. (Yes, I'm even disagreeing with the publisher who (to use the cliche) has forgotten more about this business than I'll ever know.)
But where the publisher is especially monumentally important is in keeping the book in stock. And apparently that is no easy task. The publisher's reputation with the booksellers is vitally important, and this is where a great publisher can really make a big difference. Key publishers like O'Reilly, Wiley, Pearson, etc. can make sure that once word gets around about your book, people can get their hands on it! Now, there are some books, especially consumer books and those purchased by older/less-web-aware folks for whom discovering it in the store is the most important factor, but I'm not really addressing that. I'm talking about technically-oriented books likely to be bought by those who are connected to one or more online communities in such a way that if word spreads about a book, they're likely to hear it.

3) The author knows, or learns, how to show the reader what the reader needs and wants.
There are some skills here, of course, but the most important one isn't writing! I'd put writing skills fairly low on the list, assuming some baseline capability equivalent to, say, a sophomore in high school who might get a B in basic grammar/writing. The most important thing is in teaching/communication/information design. And that's a lot of what we talk about in this blog. (But in another post, I'll offer more resources if you're still looking to improve in these areas.) And perhaps the best advice I can give to our authors is to simply not go into some kind of "writer mode". Most people who have a subject they want to communicate, could explain it just fine to a colleague over lunch, with a pencil, a napkin, and a conversation. But something gets lost when they try to "write" about it, especially if they're trying to impress others with their serious level of expertise. Say it in your book almost exactly the way you'd explain it to a friend, and you're way way way up the curve.

And finally, the most important assumption:

The author genuinely, deeply, truly cares about enhancing the lives of the reader.

So, creating a bestseller is not such a big wild-ass gamble. And the best news is that it's a win for everyone if you follow that formula. The publisher doesn't bleed money on the book, the author is well-compensated for the time they spent, the reader's life is improved through your work, and--most importantly--you get the indescribable joy of knowing that you made someone's day/week/job/even life a little brighter. And if you follow this formula, they'll tell you! Once again, let this be my huge thank-you to all our readers who take the time to write and tell us how they feel about the book (good and bad, although -- gotta tell you -- we prefer the good ; )) or that they passed the exam, got a new job, or even just that they found themselves smiling while reading about a technical topic, and how they were delighted and surprised by that. YOU are why we do this, and having the books be bestsellers means we get to continue. Wow, I couldn't possibly enjoy my work more!

(And thanks to O'Reilly for sharing this attitude and making this possible.)