The Making Of A Bestseller

"Zade Holder has always been a free-spirited young woman, from a long dynasty of tarot-card readers, fortunetellers, and practitioners of magick. Growing up in a small town and never quite fitting in, Zade is determined to forge her own path. She leaves her home in Tennessee to break free from her overprotective mother Dela, the local resident spellcaster and fortuneteller. Zade travels to Las Vegas and uses supernatural powers to become part of a premiere magic show led by the infamous magician Charles Spellman. Zade fits right in with his troupe of artists and misfits. After all, when everyone is slightly eccentric, appearing 'normal' is much less important. Behind the scenes of this multimillion-dollar production, Zade finds herself caught in a love triangle with Mac, the show's good-looking but rough-around-the-edges technical director and Jackson, the tall, dark, handsome and charming bandleader. Zade's secrets and the struggle to choose between Mac or Jackson creates reckless tension during the grand finale of the show. Using Chaos magick, which is known for being unpredictable, she tests her abilities as a spellcaster farther than she's ever tried and finds herself at death's door. Her fate is left in the hands of a mortal who does not believe in a world of real magick, a fortuneteller who knew one day Zade would put herself in danger and a dagger with mystical powers"--Amazon.com

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's career itself is a metaphor for the vagaries of book publishing. If Fitzgerald would have had his way, we would today refer to The Great Gatsby as either Gold-Hatted Gatsby, Trimalchio in West Egg, or The High-Bouncing Lover. A few years before Gatsby, Fitzgerald had become a literary sensation at the age of 23; Helen Hooven Santmyer, a contemporary of Fitzgerald's, would not have a successful novel published until she was 88 and living in a nursing home. In this book, the author explores that mysterious place in publishing where art and commerce can either clash, mesh, or both. Along the way, a wide range of authors--from the literary greats to today's commercial superstars--editors, agents and publishers share their thoughts, insights and experiences: What inspires writers? (John Steinbeck, for example, wrote every novel as if it were his last, as if death were imminent.) Why are some books successful and appreciated, while others fall into oblivion? The answers are often elusive, never absolute, but the stories and anecdotes are always fascinating.

"My books spent 5 years on the New York Times Best Seller List. They got there through endless hours of hard work. If only Brent had been my marketer, I could have done it in 5 minutes with a simple picture. I'M SO STUPID!"- Tucker Max, 3x #1 NY Times Best Selling Author "Like all good art, this book--and it is definitely a book--exposes a little bit about how society works."- Ryan Holiday, author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator "Brent Underwood's book shows the inner workings of the publishing industry and its desire to be the "best". Brent helps create a path toward ending the madness."- Matthew Kepnes, author of the New York Times bestseller How To Travel The World on $50 a Day "Unputdownable! Hop don't walk, to your nearest Kindle and download it now! The footnotes alone are worth the cover price!"- Brooke Unger, Americas Editor, The Economist "Putting My Foot Down will keep you on your toes at all time."- Young & Sick, musician/artist "Brent Underwood's foot, a more accomplished author than you or I."- The Paris Review "...status is meaningless, and can be bought for just a few dollars."- BoingBoing "Amen, Brent. Amen."- The Daily Dot "A man put a photo of his foot on Amazon."- Gothamist "The game's definitely afoot!"- Neil Gaiman "Amazing how much perception creates reality today."- Nick Bilton, Columnist, New York Times "...had me from the moment this guy takes a photo of his foot."- Laura Bennett, Senior Editor, Slate "Brilliant."- Martin Robbins, Columnist, VICE "...nails the 'biggest lie in publishing'."- Richard Lea, Books Reporter, The Guardian

The book that Inc. says "every entrepreneur should read" and an FT Book of the Month selection... How did the movie The Shawshank Redemption fail at the box office but go on to gross more than $100 million as a cult classic? How did The 48 Laws of Power miss the bestseller lists for more than a decade and still sell more than a million copies? How is Iron Maiden still filling stadiums worldwide without radio or TV exposure forty years after the band was founded? Bestselling author and marketer Ryan Holiday calls such works and artists perennial sellers. How do they endure and thrive while most books, movies, songs, video games, and pieces of art disappear quickly after initial success? How can we create and market creative works that achieve longevity? Holiday explores this mystery by drawing on his extensive experience working with businesses and creators such as Google, American Apparel, and the author John Grisham, as well as his interviews with the minds behind some of the greatest perennial sellers of our time. His fascinating examples include: • Rick Rubin, producer for Adele, Jay-Z, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who teaches his artists to push past short-term thinking and root their work in long-term inspiration. • Tim Ferriss, whose books have sold millions of copies, in part because he rigorously tests every element of his work to see what generates the strongest response. • Seinfeld, which managed to capture both the essence of the nineties and timeless themes to become a modern classic. • Harper Lee, who transformed a muddled manuscript into To Kill a Mockingbird with the help of the right editor and feedback. • Winston Churchill, Stefan Zweig, and Lady Gaga, who each learned the essential tenets of building a platform of loyal, dedicated supporters. Holiday reveals that the key to success for many perennial sellers is that their creators don’t distinguish between the making and the marketing. The product’s purpose and audience are in the creator’s mind from day one. By thinking holistically about the relationship between their audience and their work, creators of all kinds improve the chances that their offerings will stand the test of time.

"What if there was an algorithm that could predict which novels become mega-bestsellers? Are books like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl the Gladwellian outliers of publishing? [This book] boldly claims that the New York Times bestsellers in fiction are predictable and that it's possible to know with 97% certainty if a manuscript is likely to hit number one on the list as opposed to numbers two through fifteen. The algorithm does exist; the code has been cracked; the results are in"--

The first draft is the easy part… In Blueprint Your Bestseller, Stuart Horwitz offers a step-by-step process for revising your manuscript that has helped bestselling authors get from first draft to final draft. Whether you’re tinkering with your first one hundred pages or trying to wrestle a complete draft into shape, Horwitz helps you look at your writing with the fresh perspective you need to reach the finish line. Blueprint Your Bestseller introduces the Book Architecture Method, a tested sequence of steps for organizing and revising any manuscript. By breaking a manuscript into manageable scenes, you can determine what is going on in your writing at the structural level—and uncover the underlying flaws and strengths of your narrative. For more than a decade this proven approach to revision has helped authors of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as writers across all media from theater to film to TV.

From the author of Kiss My Tiara comes a funny and poignant collection of true stories about women coming of age that for once isn't about finding a date.

A collection of essays from today’s most acclaimed authors—from Cheryl Strayed to Roxane Gay to Jennifer Weiner, Alexander Chee, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Franzen—on the realities of making a living in the writing world. In the literary world, the debate around writing and commerce often begs us to take sides: either writers should be paid for everything they do or writers should just pay their dues and count themselves lucky to be published. You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It’s an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it’s really like to make art in a world that runs on money—and why it matters. Essential reading for aspiring and experienced writers, and for anyone interested in the future of literature, Scratch is the perfect bookshelf companion to On Writing, Never Can Say Goodbye, and MFA vs. NYC.