SECRET REVEALED:
How To Write A Bestseller?
Bestseller-Author
Ha. A. Mehler
My story is as simple as it is exciting.
I always wanted to write - nothing more than to write.
I wanted to earn money with writing, wanted to live from writing since the day I could think! But when I was 18 years old, I saw myself forced to confront, willy-nilly, the so-called “realities” of life. And nobody permits an 18- years- old boy to be a “great writer.”
People smile covertly at you and even the “best friends” tell you to learn something which is real and not to go on dreaming.
Well, I refused to take those “good advices”. On the other hand, I knew there was an unbelievable competition out there.
And so I decided to look, research and study extremely carefully, how the top-professionals were operating. I decided to find out what the real ingredients of a great book and a bestseller were.
I read literally thousands of books, but only bestsellers - bestsellers from the 16th century up to present time, bestsellers in German, French, Italian, Russian and English, always with the burning desire to find out the common denominators, the secrets of those great writers.
I read Hermann Hesse and Voltaire, Agatha Christie and Puschkin, Robert A. Heinlein and Jack London, James A. Michener and E. E. Smith, Shakespeare and Edgar Wallace, H. G. Wells and John Grisham and many more. And one day I made an unbelievable discovery:
Every great author of the past and present used methods to create
heart-pounding suspense!
The top of the top that created page-turners had know-how so that the reader couldn’t stop reading the book! I later gave this discovery the name “suspense-techniques” and, in fact, researched and researched on those techniques up to today.
Suspense techniques are methods, which make the reader unable to stop reading, he is glued to a book, hypnotized into a book, he can hardly sleep at night because he wants to continue to read the book and sometimes he forgets to eat and drink!
Instinctively, I knew I had struck pure gold. I had touched on an unbelievably hot subject, hotter than the atom bomb perhaps, because with writing you can influence the minds and the thinking, and write against the atom bomb! So I continued to study this subject like crazy and at the same time wrote my first professional book with my techniques. And immediately I found a publisher! Most publishers consciously or unconsciously have this standard: a book must be suspenseful.
I was on the right track! I immediately wrote a bestseller with a relatively boring title, “How to be self-employed as a real estate agent,” but the book sold like mad and was selling and selling and selling. Yes, the know-how I had carefully researched was great, but in addition I had applied my own suspense-techniques. I continued to write and write with the result in the end of appearing on the internal bestseller list on places 1, 2, 4, and 5 all at the same time, in the same publishing company!
Boy, I was suddenly a bestseller-author and a dream had come true. Then the flow turned around. Publishers - normally the most hard-to-meet-people in the world - offered me the red carpet. Ten publishers in Germany alone wanted to have a book written by me! Ten!
I did it! And wrote many bestsellers. One of my books sold 20,000 times in ONE MONTH alone! Today I am published in 8 countries, have written over 100 books, and more countries are waiting to be opened up.
All my success is due to those suspense-techniques.
As an established writer I was again and again asked by newcomers: What are those suspense-techniques?
Well, I always told them and I even gave seminars on writing, but in the end I couldn’t meet the demand anymore. Thus I wrote the book “HOW TO WRITE A BESTSELLER” in which all those suspense-techniques I discovered are published.
The big money I earned and am earning up to date and the resultant fame are today not important to me. But what was really important was the fact that I could do what I wanted to do.
I always wanted to write - nothing more than to write!
Read a few pages ….
…Allow me to begin by briefly introducing myself. I am the proud author of over 100 books. Many of them have ascended to become sellers or best sellers. The response to about 80 percent of my books has been either good or excellent. I write this so that you know you’re talking with a hands-on writer and not a theoretician. A writer who was once described by a journalist as “the most successful…author of his generation.”
Permit me to toot my own horn a few more times.
Within three years, I had managed to become one of the most sought-after authors available. Here’s how I made it. A former television journalist, I eventually resolved to turn my back on that industry and to try my luck as a writer. I began by writing a book titled How To Start Your Own Real Estate Business, which at first glance seems a rather conservative title. But lo and behold! The book was a smash hit and sold like hotcakes. The publisher could hardly keep up with the reprints. In the end, sales for this book were hailed as “the best sales results of the publishing house!” In other words, I had begun my career with a best seller! I then penned one hit after another, until I was engaged by the largest paperback publisher in Germany and ten additional publishing houses. I wrote numerous books, including the seller Money: More Wealth, Lower Taxes, a book that sold 20,000 copies in the first month alone, How Pros Motivate, How To Make A Fortune In Real Estate, and Self-Made Men and Millionaires. At one point a large business publishing house listed me on an internal, confidential list of its top five best-selling authors. I had taken first, second, fourth and fifth…
I could add even more superlatives here, such as the fact that a stack of articles (at least two feet high) has been published about me, the fact that I’ve become one of the most highly-paid authors in the market and the fact that my books have been translated into many languages. The list goes on and on. But let’s stop here. It’s getting a little embarrassing.
There’s only one reason for me to tell you all this; I myself don’t appreciate getting “good advice” galore from people who don’t practice what they preach. My personal credo, which has served me very well, is that I only lend my ear to those who can get results. So when I proffer my pearls of wisdom on how to write a best seller, I am trying to get you to see the successful hands-on writer in me, nothing more.
It’s time to get down to brass tacks. How do you write a best seller? Let’s back up a few steps first and ask ourselves what a best seller is after all. You might not believe it, but apart from the best sellers that are published in the New York Times or in other high-circulation magazines there is no universal definition of this word!
But we still ought to try to understand it better. So, what is a best seller? A best seller is, in fact, dependent on at least three factors:
1. The size of the publishing house is vital. A global publisher might begin to feel satisfied once 20,000 copies are sold per year. A mini-publishing house, on the other hand, breaks out the champagne when 2,000 are sold.
2. Furthermore, it makes a difference whether it’s a hardcover or a paperback edition. The basic reason for this is the price of the book. In my estimation, a relatively expensive book can be called a seller after it has sold as few as 5,000 copies per year
3. Finally, the time factor is not to be ignored. No matter if a book sells 20,000 copies, if it takes 2000 years to do so, it goes without saying that it’s not a best seller.
A good rule of thumb might be:
- large publishing house/paperback
per year = seller 20,000 copies sold
- medium-sized publishing house/hardcover
per year = seller 5,000 copies sold
These might sound like modest sums to your ears, but if you consider that a book with a price tag of $50 “only” sells 5,000 copies, that adds up to sales of $250,000 in one year, a cool quarter million, in other words. That’s not chump change. Now let four more years go by and you’re already at $1 million in sales. No one would turn up his or her nose at these numbers.
In the publishing industry, there’s another animal called a long-seller, the continuously successful seller that sells well over a long period of time. License revenues also play a role when evaluating a book. In addition, there’s a difference between sellers and best sellers.
By the way, one of the world’s most famous publishers once set down a rule of thumb for the definition of “success” in publishing. The gentleman in question was the great German publisher Brockhaus, who also had the dubious distinction of being saddled with a notorious anti-seller. It was by the one and only Arthur Schopenhauer, his first work, The World As Will And Representation. Ten years after publication, the first run of 800 copies had still not sold out.
But Brockhaus was not daunted by the occasional unsuccessful venture. He once stated his formula for success, “We have to accept that, as a rule, we will lose in ten of twenty undertakings, will break even in five, earn decently in four and earn very well in one.” A highly interesting statement that hints at exactly how publishers think.
Let’s get back to the original question: How do I write a best seller?
Is there any know-how on how to write a best seller? How do you really go about it?
A direct answer: Of course such know-how exists. But believe it or not, quite a few of our contemporaries consider it to be one of the loftiest virtues not to leak or pass on real know-how. Business people would sooner bite off their own tongues than to pass on business know-how! I myself live on the other side of the fence. My personal credo is that information and knowledge should be disseminated, that knowledge should be made available to everyone. What good are the most precious pearls of wisdom and the most profound insights if no one knows them? I therefore have the pleasure of informing you in all modesty that you have an extraordinary book in your hands. The goal of this book is to elucidate the know-how and the techniques of best-selling authors.
The groundwork for this book was laid in the course of approximately twenty years spent studying history’s most renowned long-selling authors, from the 16th century through the 20th, as well as current top writers whose names appear again and again on “Top 40″ best-seller lists.
Fundamentally, what I discovered was that all long-selling and best-selling authors use certain techniques repeatedly and consistently in their writing! Do you understand how momentous such a discovery is? It means that there are evidently rules, laws and techniques that enable a writer to captivate the reader’s attention and interest as if by magic!
Indeed, it’s fascinating to discover that, without exception, all the top authors use techniques that guarantee that readers remain faithful to them. These techniques enthrall and fascinate readers to the point that they can’t put the book down, reading night and day until they’ve finished it.
They have no choice but to keep reading, you see.
In the interest of conveying the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I can’t edge my way around one particular remark: professionalism is never possible without working for it! Anyone attempting to tell you any differently is out to hoodwink you.
No matter the discoveries you’ve made, or the insights you may have gained, you have to invest some sweat. And knowing the basic tools of the writing trade is essential.
What do I mean by that? Well, let’s see if we can find our answer in a topic that has been at the center of growing controversy - non-fiction.
For example, here are a few must-know items:
- How to systematically extend your vocabulary in a brief period of time.
- Methods you will need in order to devise a well-conceived table of contents.
- The ideal title for your book.
- How to bring order to a pool of data.
- Success formulas for non-fiction sellers.
I could go on, but let’s leave it at that. I prefer to allocate the answers to these questions to the category of craftsmanship, although another writer might refer to them as (literary) trade secrets. Above and beyond these “secrets,” an author needs what might be termed creativity techniques.
First a frank admission on this subject. The question of how to write best sellers has always interested me. There is of necessity a subjective factor as well; you yourself are an essential variable in the equation. Particularly helpful were certain methods that allowed me to write entirely different books than the “typical” author would have. I discovered them over the years by observing when I wrote best, when the ideas and words literally poured out of me and when I was spurred to top performance. This is how I developed the method I use to write outstanding books.
If you will, this book is the result of a “hot” investigation. Questions about the “secret” of best-selling authors pop up again and again. Journalists never stop wondering where top writers get their ideas. So what is the source of their inspiration?
I asked myself how to write a best seller (and not how to write books) simply because I despise mediocrity. The swamp of the commonplace has never interested me. I personally think best-selling authors are not made of the same stuff that engenders mediocrity, acquiescence, ingenuousness, agreement and middle class conformism. On the contrary, I think best-selling authors have completely different characteristics. One of the first hurdles you have to clear is to break out of the commonplace and to allow yourself the luxury of entertaining your own opinions. If need be, you can take on the whole world and turn your back on everything that has been forced upon you. But this touches on the very topic that has been reserved for the last chapter of this book.
By the way, you’ve probably noticed that these comments are a small preview of what this book has in store for you. I think I can offer you some fascinating adventures. But I’ll let you be the judge of that!
Interested in the whole book?
214 pages top-know-how.
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