I was curious one day and did some pleasure research about the publishing industry.
One of the more topics that I read about is how a book becomes a bestseller, specifically the New York Times Bestseller, which is the most prestigious bestseller title out of the rest.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a straight answer to that. There’s more to it than just selling a lot of copies.
However, I did find out the average age of male and female authors that they publish their first bestseller.
And the answer is around 48.
I was surprised, but not at the same time.
Writing, like any other skill, takes years to master and many more years to be at your prime.
So a bestseller is a literary celebrity status that really means something (for a lot of people at least) and is only given to the best authors.
Nowadays, because of the power of the Internet, celebrities are getting younger. And I’ve seen young Internet celebrities publish their own books and achieve the New York Times Bestseller title.
While their supporters are congratulating them and celebrating their achievement, there’s always that one green Grinch that’ll complain.
One of the complaints I read was that the young Internet celebrities achieving a bestseller title so fast gives it less meaning.
Perhaps they’re right, except they’re ignoring one big thing.
Yes, it’s true they launch the book by announcing it to their fans. But it took years for them to build up the huge following they have now. So they did put in work to reach that goal.
Building a quality email list is no different. It takes years to build up.
But that’s only part of the battle.
The other part is nurturing the new incomers with some good engaging sales emails, which you can learn about by reading How to Become an Email Titan.