Write this badly and you too can sell tens of millions of books

[MajorRewrite]

A couple of authors on my “inexplicably popular” list: Mickey Spillane and Colleen Hoover. I think they’re both terrible.

Obviously millions of people do like them, so I must the odd one.

 

[Euphony]

But he never learned to use the dramatic tool of "smoothing the skirt"

The internet is mostly terrible but it can be beautiful sometimes...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/wdpu76/skirt_smoothing_analysis

now WITH visuals!

 

[KeithD]

That may be true, but I certainly am not interested in reading something bad just to go, "Aww, how sweet," over something outside of the story itself.

I didn't. I come from (and write about) international espionage. Hillary Clinton has the background of plotting realistically about that. That's why I read the book. I think that's a legitimate reason for one writer to read a book by someone else with the qualifying background to plot in that genre. She disappointed me about not doing that well in State of Terror, but I didn't know that about the book until I'd read it.

Beyond that, yeah, I'll read a book about or by someone I'm really interested in even if it wasn't elegantly written. I'm not a snob that way. So, sue me.

 

[intim8]

whenever someone goes after her writing on this board, they are "it should have been me" whining

If you think that is the only possible motivation for it, maybe you are due some introspection.

 

[KeithD]

If you think that is the only possible motivation for it, maybe you are due some introspection.

I haven't posted "only motivations." If you're so defensive about this, maybe you are due some introspection.

I didn't mention it, but going after Coutler's books as you chose to do here is in the same decades-long periodic sour grapes whining about 50 Shades on this board. People buy her books because they enjoy the connection with someone they're interested in. It's not at all surprising either that they do so or that the market takes advantage of this. If you don't like her books, read different books.

 

[intim8]

going after Coutler's books as you chose to do here is in the same decades-long periodic sour grapes whining

You're blinded by your predjudices, or something else.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You're blinded by your predjudices, or something else.

Naww, Keith just likes to be contrary.

 

[intim8]

People buy her books because they enjoy the connection with someone they're interested in.

I doubt anyone has any attachment to or interest in her other than recognizing the name of the author of books they'd read and enjoyed before.

Any chance you're thinking of Ann Coulter?

 

[KeithD]

Naww, Keith just likes to be contrary.

I like objective and fair (and experienced) better. *smile*

That this thread was started at all reeks of sour grapes to me--objectively, fairly, and experienced thinking.

 

[intim8]

That this thread was started at all reeks of sour grapes to me-

As I posted earlier, you may have missed it:

But again, the idea of jealousy (sour grapes) frustration, raised blood pressure, or feeling like she's even potentially taking anything from me never crossed my mind when posting this. I laughed when I read it, thinking of all the hand-wringing in various writer's forums about what this is such a blatant example of.

Many of y'all here are already better than her, at least in some ways.. Getting published and getting sold is hard, but not because of Catherine Coulter, and not because you're not doing enough show-don't-tell or because your plots are contrived or whatever.

In fact, I'm starting to suspect that experience in writing erotica can do a lot for writing more mainstream dramatic fiction. There are skills developed here that more "serious" writers might have a hard time gaining.

You can believe me or not, I don't really care.

 

[Euphony]

Full literary criticisms aside, I could've used a breather from "Inner Goddess."

That or flesh out the concept more if you are so enamored with the idea.

No-mans land is almost always narrative death.

 

[Wifetheif]

I don’t begrudge anyone their success, even EL James, who, if she published on L.com would be one bombed to oblivion. What I DO get upset about is a publishing house not doing basics, such as proper proofreading and grammar. Folks here deservedly but our chops for failing to do that at this site. I can handle a dodgy stylist or a moderately incompetent grammarian so long as the story holds my interest. What should piss all of us off is major publishing houses issuing what amounts to uncorrected first drafts as the finished product. In Ernest Cline’s latest “Bridge to Bat City” the word suddenly appeared three times in the span of TWO sentences. A senentce begins and ends with suddenly and suddenly appeared in the very next sentence. There is NO excuse for that!

 

[gunhilltrain]

Okay, who are they and where is this from?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Okay, who are they and where is this from?

Left is Fashion mogul Mugatu (Will Ferrell) and his nasty henchwoman Katinka (Mila Jovovich) from the gloriously incomparable movie Zoolander.

Behind then is Gavin Rossdale (pretty sure?) Gwen Stefani (as themselves) and the male model Hansel (he's so HOT right now) (Owen Wilson).

 

[gunhilltrain]

Context: a serious, hard-bitten thriller novel from Catherine Coulter, who has sold tens of millions of books, has dozens of NYT bestsellers, and is one of the A-list names in contemporary thrillers.

In this scene, a police detective (~40+M) is meeting two FBI agents and a federal prosecutor (?F) for the first time. After an exchange of a dozen words of introductory smalltalk:

Aside from the cringeworthy writing, the premise here seems to be that in six years since his wife died, he has never found a woman attractive before. Because that is all he has to go on here. Either that, or it is twoo luv at first sight, even though the guy is decades past high school and has presumably seen real boobies before.

It gets worse:


And yes, the text is as it appears in the book, with the exception of the substitutions in brackets.

I've found that her books are complete lessons in how not to write. Even on Lit, the descriptions of two people hitting it off are rarely that badly done. This is, among other things, the flip side of "men writing women badly". "Potent"? Really?

Unfortunately, they are also lessons in how to sell a shit ton of books.

In a story I have pending, the female narrator, as an aside near the end, complains about the wordy writing in Lady Chatterly's Lover. She thinks something like, "Come on David, let's more this along already."

Your snippets didn't appear here, but this one is good: "He thought first of an Amazon, then decided she was more of a Valkyrie." I gather she is one of the FBI agents?

I guess this is the other agent: "was so good-looking even Jeter's sour stiff-necked secretary, Ms. Plimm, had eyed him like a chocolate bar." How about like a slice of pepperoni pizza?

 

[Bamagan]

Okay, who are they and where is this from?

Movie: Zoolander. Front row is Will Ferrell and Milla Jovovich. I think that might be Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani behind them, then Owen Wilson on the right.

 

[TheArsonist]

It's not so much a matter of being hurt, perhaps, but I can see why it would cause some incredulous, hair-pulling frustration to see lucrative books like that, which have presumably been professionally edited and so forth, and then to come here and find a comment that goes something like 'plot too contrived, characters not believable, 2 stars.'

Of course, those lucrative books also receive plenty of reviews along those lines. Colleen Hoover is probably one of the most lucrative names in the business right now, and you don't have to look far to find people tearing her books apart. (I read one of her books. It didn't make me eager for more, but it was—by far—not the worst thing I read this year.)

I separate books into two piles--the professional writer and the celebrity writer (who often hasn't done the writing themselves). I read and assess professional writers on content. And, yes, I'll be critical with them.

Given that the authors who are being critiqued here are all professional writers, your condemnation of the criticism looks mighty inconsistent if not outright hypocritical.

SINCE EL James's 50 Shades has cropped up again, we might as well take another look at this. 50 Shades didn't become a best-seller because hordes of buyers/readers thought it was written well. It became a best-seller because it popped up in the publishing houses when they were looking to open up underutilized markets.

You're wrong. I just read a really interesting article about what we can learn about the publishing business from the Penguin v. DOJ antitrust case, and it talks extensively about this. Publishers are constantly looking for the next big thing and doing their best to create them, of course, but their hit rate is low: a book doesn't become a smash hit just because of a marketing push. The successes are mostly serendipitous, more or less unpredictable phenomena.

Michael Pietsch (CEO, Hachette):
We’re very hit driven. When a book is successful, it can be wildly successful. There are books that sell millions and millions of copies, and those are financial gushes for the publishers of that book, sometimes for years to come… A gusher is once in a decade or something. For instance, I don’t know if you know the Twilight series of books? Hachette published the Twilight series of books, and those made hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of time.

Right now the novels of Colleen Hoover are topping the bestseller lists in really, really huge numbers and the publishers of those books are making a lot of money. You probably remember The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo… Or the Fifty Shades of Grey series. So once every five years, ten years, those come along for the whole industry and become the industry driver that’s drawing people into bookstores because there is such a commotion about them.

So I think SimonDoom has it right:

There's more to it than smugness and sour grapes. I see nothing wrong with critiquing the writing of famous authors. It's useful to dissect and critique writing. And it's not like we're going to hurt their feelings, as we might if we did that with authors here.

One of the best examples in this category has to be E.L. James, the 50 Shades author. Her books are full of examples of "what not to do" in writing prose, but she did it anyway, probably because she didn't know better, and her books were phenomenally successful.

You don't have to be a great stylist to be a successful genre novelist. You have to be good at SOMETHING. Jackie pointed out Crichton, who I agree is a mediocre stylist but whose ideas are enjoyable and played out with meticulous detail. Even E.L. James hit on a winning formula of including elements of BDSM with a classic gothic romance. Successful novelists obviously must have admirable discipline to write and publish so steadily.

Genre writers only become popular if they provide something the market wants. They don't need to be even competent stylists—most readers don't have good critical faculties when it comes to prose, or they just don't care—but they need to provide just the right flavor of escapism that the audience craves. Right formula, right time, and a large heaping of luck.

So when a book that is undeniably badly written becomes a success, it's interesting to try to understand what its secret is. Because somehow, it's successfully giving readers something they want.

 

[intim8]

So when a book that is undeniably badly written becomes a success, it's interesting to try to understand what its secret is. Because somehow, it's successfully giving readers something they want.

There's another dimension to that. A wildly successful book migh give no readers what they want most, but gives millions of readers what they want just barely enough to buy it.

Like McDonalds. Nobody thinks they're the best burgers, but everybody thinks they're good enough.

 

[Bamagan]

There's another dimension to that. A wildly successful book migh give no readers what they want most, but gives millions of readers what they want just barely enough to buy it.

Like McDonalds. Nobody thinks they're the best burgers, but everybody thinks they're good enough.

Not everybody!

 

[Bamagan]

Of course, those lucrative books also receive plenty of reviews along those lines. Colleen Hoover is probably one of the most lucrative names in the business right now, and you don't have to look far to find people tearing her books apart. (I read one of her books. It didn't make me eager for more, but it was—by far—not the worst thing I read this year.)

Yes, but she can dry her tears of anguish with highly absorbent hundred dollar bills!
I expect that's a significant palliative for ignoring criticisms.

 

[TheArsonist]

There's another dimension to that. A wildly successful book migh give no readers what they want most, but gives millions of readers what they want just barely enough to buy it.

I don't agree. Nobody sells that much without plenty of reader enthusiasm. And if you look at writers like E.L. James and Colleen Hoover, they have hordes of superfans. (Also, according to the article linked, practically nobody sells that much, period. At least not through traditional publishers.)

Like McDonalds. Nobody thinks they're the best burgers, but everybody thinks they're good enough.

McDonald's offers something that isn't just a barely adequate version of something better you can get elsewhere, though. I'm sure many of us have had cravings for McDonald's that wouldn't be satisfied by a "higher-quality" burger from a more upscale restaurant.

 

[lovecraft68]

Are you actually projecting that kind of naive motivation on this, or just musing on your own thoughts on the matter?

If I have any complaint about this, is that crap like this is marketed alongside work that has some quality to it, and that makes it harder for me to find worthwhile reads. And their success encourages others to mimic it, making it even more difficult for a discerning reader.

Even if I were published, these writers in that genre would not be my competition. It's not a zero-sum game, and even mega-sellers don't individually absorb noticeable fractions of the total market.

The main reason for posting was the humor of how bad writing can be and still sell. And to encourage those of us with doubts about our ability to give it a shot.

Your opinion on quality differs from others. Most people, and this site is an example, want to be entertained, and if an author entertains them then to them, that's quality.

Seems like tens of millions of people disagree with you.

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

There's definitely no connection between quality writing and being a bestseller; the skill that matters for the latter is marketing.

Someone already mentioned the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy, and the secret to the author's success (from what I've read) is that she was heavily involved in the online Twlight series fan clubs and marketed her own books to them.

A more recent example is the young adult fantasy novel The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I read the first couple of chapters in the sample and thought the writing was OK, but decided it wasn't for me and didn't buy it. Not that it matters, because thanks to BookTok, it's absolutely exploded in terms of sales and has a ridiculously high rating of something like 4.7 out of 5.

 

[SimonDoom]

So when a book that is undeniably badly written becomes a success, it's interesting to try to understand what its secret is. Because somehow, it's successfully giving readers something they want.

I think it comes down to a good story. And that takes talent, too, a talent that might go unappreciated when the prose is weak.

Being a good storyteller is by far the most important skill. All the technical skill in the world isn't going to help you if you can't tell a story.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't agree. Nobody sells that much without plenty of reader enthusiasm. And if you look at writers like E.L. James and Colleen Hoover, they have hordes of superfans. (Also, according to the article linked, practically nobody sells that much, period. At least not through traditional publishers.)

McDonald's offers something that isn't just a barely adequate version of something better you can get elsewhere, though. I'm sure many of us have had cravings for McDonald's that wouldn't be satisfied by a "higher-quality" burger from a more upscale restaurant.

Their main virtues were that they were: 1. ubiquitous, 2.predictable, and 3. cheap. There are starting to lose the second two, as I found out during my first visit there in three years (I had to eat something, and they were right there.) The predictability part was weak when they took over a half-hour to prepare my order from the kiosk. The price: I think it was $18.25 for two fish sandwiches (the kind of thing once served in rehab centers), a small fries, and a medium-sized orange juice. The juice was the best part of the meal.