When I meet with authors who are considering working with us to have their book published, I am sometimes asked, “What is your most successful book?” Generally, what they really want to know is, have we—ALIVE Book Publishing—published any books that have become commercially successful? Are there some “best sellers” amongst the many titles ALIVE Books has released over the years?
While I suppose it’s a fair question, this exchange is always a bit awkward because I know my answer is likely to be, for lack of a better word, unfulfilling.
“It depends,” is what I tell them, “upon what you mean by ‘successful.’”
The awkwardness comes precisely at that moment when the author rightfully realizes that the potential for commercial success (or failure) for his or her book has absolutely zero relation to that of other books we have published.
The question is asked innocently enough—the author wants to know if we “know what we’re doing.” Is ALIVE a reputable publishing company? Does ALIVE have the marketing and distribution capabilities to get their book into the market? But that’s not all. They also want to know if we can “make” their book become a bestseller. Do we have the “secret sauce” that will put them on the New York Times list?
We’ve had authors break down and cry when we handed them the first published copy of their book—the fulfillment of a lifelong goal, realized. That was “success.” I have heard countless accounts of how lives have been touched and even healed, not by anything we did, but by the heartfelt labor of one author’s investment in a 25+ year project, now realized in a four-volume history of the Vietnam War. This is “success.”
Secret sauce? No such thing exists—a fact that applies to everyone in every area of life. If no one has ever told you, I am telling you now: Success can mean many different things. Don’t ever judge yourself or your potential, based on what others have done.
To my knowledge, every book we have ever published has been a smashing success—some commercially to be sure; some in other ways based upon the author’s aspirations. Being on a “Best Seller List” is but one possible metric to consider when you set about writing your book.
