Bestselling Books of All Time

Being a bestseller, legendary, the next JK Rowling, these are things all authors hope to have happen to them in their lifetime. Sometimes, it dies happen, and sometimes, they become famous post-mortem. Do you know the real reason certain books become bestsellers? A lot of it may have to do with luck and marketing, but the best selling books of all time, while they may not surprise you, it may be interesting to examine them, and know how to follow in those footsteps.

Harry Potter

All seven of the Harry potter books are in the top ten of bestselling books of all time. Does this surprise you, annoy you, or is this just what you would expect? What interests me about this particular series, beyond the actual story which is epic, no one will ever convince me of anything else, is that the first book was rejected many times. It was written by a single mother, destitute and on welfare, but with one of the most amazing minds I have ever known anything about. If I would have to compare the way i write or feel about writing to anyone, it would be JK Rowling. She is an all around amazing woman and author, and Harry Potter quite literally saved her life. What makes the story so great is that every age group could find something to love and latch onto, and the characters felt more real still than anything I have ever read. Getting those reluctant readers to pick up a book was just a side effect of her spot on character development. Every child could see themselves as one of the characters and got to pretend magic was real as well.

The Da Vinci Code

This is actually THE bestselling book of all time, sitting at over five million copies sold. There is something to be said about creating controversy to sell books. Not that I am saying that is what Dan Brown did. i don't think he did that at all. It is clearly a work of fiction, but I cannot say i have not seen authors hit #1 on Amazon by writing something totally taboo on purpose. In this case, the subject matter alone, I feel, sold the book. I have to admit that it is a favorite of mine. Angels and Demons also makes the list at #9.

Fifty Shades of Grey

I am warning you now that if you are absolutely in love with this book or its author, you may want to move on for a moment and read about the last one on this list, instead. I am not dissing any specific person here, but I want tp present things as they are, with the truth. Many may know that this series started out as a fan fiction; a taboo adult version of Twilight. interestingly enough, twilight itself comes in at #12 on the list of bestselling books of all time. It would seem a smart thing to do, to write something like that right when Twilight was at the height of its fandom. Top that off with the fact that it is in the home of a lot of mothers and grandmothers despite the abusive undertones and very sexual themes, and you have yourself a formula for a bestseller. I have read portions, and I cannot get through it. I feel a little jipped as an author myself. I feel it sold on two things alone; sex and Grey, the adult version of Edward. Now, I do not know enough about E.L. James and her writing to say if her writing overall is bad. But, let's be honest, I love Twilight, team Edward all the way, but we can probably all agree the writing was horrendous. So, if E.L. James was trying to latch onto that style, her writing in these books would be atrocious as well. It might have been entirely on purpose to get that twilight feel down. But I would hope that this author gives us something else, based of her own creativity, to go by at some point.

The Help

Much of the top 100 is dominated by the same authors, or by books that have been made into movies that were just a spopular, if not more so, than the books they were about. To get something I wanted to speak on, I ahd to go all the way to #47. This ine is The Help. If you have not at least seen the film, you need to see it at least once in your life. Just like many of the abive titles, it focuses on a very controversial topic. This one, involves racism and the way rich women in the south used to not care for their own children, but had black women do that as well as cooking and cleaning for them. Often, they were ttreated poorly or not thought of too mch at all. This one makes you laugh, cry, and scream, all within these same pages. It doesn't hurt that it is absed on a part of American history that we sometimes don't ant to think on for too long.

It may seem like there is a recurring theme here; creating a lot of buzz, being taboo or controversial, but i think it may be a little simpler than that. These bestsellers have one more thing in common; they all make people feel something. They make people feel strongly.

When Hedwig died, who wasn't angry, who didn't cry? Who didn't feel shocked or mystified when it came out that all along the descendant of Jesus had been right there? Who did not feel like they needed a Christian Grey in their life, or their bedrooms, just once? Who did not cry fowl for the amazing black women that raised these white children with no rights or credit?