So why do we think they are? And what does that have to do with your book?
The answer to both of these questions is perceived value.
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| How much do you think this is worth? Really? |
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Value Is Made Up (And Too Many People Think It Isn't)
So, to finish the history lesson, the current campaign to convince us that diamonds are intrinsically valuable was started by the De Beers company in the early part of the 1900s. They controlled a huge part of the market, but their product wasn't seen as intrinsically valuable, and when the Great Depression hit and wallets got tight, they ran into a serious issue. The answer... a marketing campaign!
Decades of marketing were conducted to convince people that diamonds stood for true love and eternal devotion. Why did a shiny rock need to cost 3 months' salary? Because the people selling the rock wanted you to buy it at a grossly inflated price. And because one company controlled so much of the supply, they were able to determine to a large degree how many diamonds were on the market, and what that going rate was. The result was that generations of people see diamonds as a necessity for a successful marriage proposal, and that people think they're an extremely valuable commodity, when the truth is that the only thing that made diamonds so valuable was that the people who had all the diamonds said they were valuable over and over again until people believed them.
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| No, it's worth more than that. Yeah, that should do it! |
What does this have to do with books, though?
People have this mythical belief in the idea of an author's skill, and the quality of their story, giving the book an intrinsic value. This means that if a book is good then it will sell a lot of copies, and the author will be rewarded for their efforts. I don't know if this is an offshoot of the prosperity gospel, or just the idea that a reader base of 10 million people can't be wrong, but this myth persists, and it is pervasive in the mind of the reading public.
It doesn't matter how many trashy, poorly written, low-quality books make the bestseller list, and have for decades. It doesn't matter how many Twilights or 50 Shades we have, so many people believe (often without questioning this belief) that if a book sells a lot of copies that it is a direct reflection of the skill of its author. The problem is that the quality of so many books, just like the value of diamonds, has nothing to do with their intrinsic value.
They sell copies because of marketing.
In the small sense, perhaps you came across one of those rare authors who has a solid pitch for their books at a convention, and they knew just how to target the parts of you that made you interested. Maybe you saw an ad that looked cool on a banner, or a book reviewer you enjoy couldn't stop gushing about it. It's possible the algorithm decided to show you this book in your recommended tabs over and over again, or maybe you were at a convention and you saw the author at a signing table with a line of folks, and you decided to ask about it.
All of those things can make a book look like it's successful (and thus popular and valubale by extension), but none of that has anything to do with whether or not the book is well-written. It says nothing about whether the plot is cohesive, the prose is engaging, or the writer sticks the landing. But all of these factors, from the cover art, to the name of the author, to how many conventions or bookstores you see them in, is a factor in you deciding whether you'll buy their book, and whether the price you pay is worth it.
I've said it before, but it's worth saying again. If you're an author, you not being able to build a massive, national marketing campaign to get thousands of people to buy your book doesn't mean it's not a good book. And if you're a reader, remember, just because you've never heard of someone, or never seen their book before, tells you nothing about their work... except that they probably don't have the money and connections to reach a bigger audience.
Just pick it up, and read a few pages. See if you like it. That is the only real way to detemine whether this is a book you're going to enjoy.
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That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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