What makes a bestseller - Writing or Setting?
Note: I define 'setting' as where and when a novel takes place, as well as what the genre entails. It is the background to the picture of the story.
I realize there are a lot of factors that contribute to making bestsellers become bestsellers, and that the list is by no means limited to writing and setting. My concern is with writing versus setting. I've seen some books (which I will not name, to avoid the inevitable debate), that to me at least, seem to have become bestsellers simply through their setting. They are written well, certainly, but they are often full of mistakes, and the writing in general is not the stuff of greatness.
This raises the question: can a novel become a bestseller (mostly) because of its setting? Can you get away with mediocre writing and still sell because your setting is popular?
Note: I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to get away with mediocre writing. :) I'm actually hoping that the answer to the question above is 'no'; that there is some other reason these novels have become bestsellers.
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It seems you're using the term setting in a non-standard way to mean genre conventions. Given that, I would say that a mastery of genre, including the fulfillment of the expectations of the core audience, can bring short-term popularity, but that only good writing will endure over the long term.
It's also worth noting that the most popular works typically draw on a given genre, but subvert it or transcend it by taking it in unexpected-but-satisfying new directions (that way they not only pick up the core audience, they expand upon it) --and it takes excellent writing to manage that task.
As @what noted, however, the impact of selling can outweigh both quality and genre appeal, at least in the short term.
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If I had a formula for what makes a book a bestseller, then I'd have a bunch of bestselling books to my name instead of the lame few hundred copies my books sell.
I think the biggest factor in making a best-selling book is that the author is already famous. If a big-time Hollywood actor or a well-known politician or a champion athlete writes a book, it will almost automatically sell many copies. (In many cases they don't even write the book. They get someone else to write it and they put their name on it. But that's another story.)
Number two is that the author has previously written best-selling books. Now that Tom Clancy and J K Rowling and so on have written best-selling books, anything they write will sell well.
Number three is having a broad potential readership. Romance novels tend to sell relatively well because a large percentage of women are interested in romance (and several dozen men). A how-to book about re-inking antique typewriter ribbons will not sell very well because the number of people interested in the subject is tiny to begin with. (Though niche books like this have the advantage that there's not much competition.)
After that, I think there's a lot of luck involved. It is not at all clear to me that best-selling books in general are better written than many books that go nowhere. A really bad book that doesn't meet number 1 or number 2 above will probably not sell well. But there are lots of good books that don't sell. Some books just capture people's attention and create a "buzz". Others, for whatever reason, don't. Quality of the book is certainly a factor, but it's not simply a matter of "the best books make it".
Of course you could say the same about marketing anything. There are restaurants that have really good food that go bankrupt while a restaurant across town with mediocre food does well. There are brilliant gadgets people have invented that never take off while less clever gadgets make millions. Etc.
In many cases this is marketing: a bad product with good marketing beats a good product with bad marketing almost every time.
But in the book world, there isn't very much real marketing. You get a book on the shelves at the bookstore and/or listed on Amazon and you hope people will buy it. You rarely see TV commercials or newspaper ads for specific books.
I don't mean to sound negative. I'd just say, "Write the best book you can, do the best you can to promote it, and hope and pray for the best."
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Neither of those. They can certainly make a novel enjoyable. But make it a best-seller...I'm not sure. For instance, I've never heard people say that they want to read a novel because it's set in New York or Paris or Narnia.
As for the writing...okay maybe this one is more important. However, the term is a little ambiguous. What do you mean by writing? The quality of the prose? Whether it's funny?
I think the key element to write a best-seller is to make it a page-turner. I've never read or heard of a page-turner that wasn't a best-seller.
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If I am limited to Writing and Setting as you describe them, I have to choose Writing.
Because I think a fine story can be written in an unsurprising setting, about lawyers, or love, or comedy, or hacking. Mr. Robot has no really exotic or memorable settings, I think that is excellent writing.
I think Seinfeld was excellent comedic writing, it is set in very ordinary parts of NYC, the characters had pretty basic jobs.
The same was true for things like Backdraft, The Perfect Storm, and many other dramas.
When Harry Met Sally has mundane settings.
I don't care how exotic your setting is, poor writing is just not entertaining, it is irritating. What makes a best-seller is an entertaining story and free and trusted advertising by word-of-mouth and free reviews, from readers that say they really liked it. They liked it because they liked the characters and kept reading to find out what happened to them, how it worked out, and were still happy after reading the last page.
"Setting" may provide some surprises and delight at its cleverness, but if the reading is a slog, these novelties fall flat. And I don't think an unusual "Setting" is required at all for a best seller, what is required is a compelling character with an interesting problem and the mystery of how she will solve it. To my, that falls more on the "Writing" side than the "Setting" side, because she can be a reporter in Anytown, USA, trying to send some evil crime boss to prison without getting herself killed in the bargain.
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