What Makes a Bestseller Sell?

Being a thriller.

According to PublishersWeekly.com, this is the 10 hardcover fiction bestseller list for the week of May 3:

1 Deliver Us from Evil, David Baldacci

2 The Help, Kathryn Stockett

3 The Shadow of Your Smile, Mary Higgins Clark

4 The Double Comfort Safari Club, Alexander McCall Smith

5 This Body of Death, Elizabeth George

6 Lucid Intervals, Stuart Woods

7 Burning Lamp, Amanda Quick

8 Every Last One, Anna Quindlen

9 Changes, Jim Butcher

10 Eight Days to Live, Iris Johansen

I have not ever read anything by any of these authors, let alone the books on the list. Looking into the novels I found a theme: majority of them are thrillers that are a part of a series. Deliver Us from Evil is the sequel to The Whole Truth, Lucid Intervals is a part of the Stone Barrington cop series,  Changes is a part of the fantasy thriller series Dresden Files, Eight Days to Live is a part of the Eve Duncan forensics thrillers series, The Double Comfort Safari Club is in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, and The Shadow of Your Smile and This Body of Death are also thrillers without a series.

The other three books on the list that aren’t thrillers are Burning Lamp (of the Arcane Society series) that falls under historical fantasy, Every Last One which is a family drama, and The Help, historical fiction based on the civil rights movement.

This tells me that people really love to read thrillers. I myself rarely touch the stuff, though in the past I have enjoyed a few of James Patterson’s novels and many of our book shelves are dedicated to my boyfriend’s collection of Lee Child novels. I understand the popularity of thrillers; they are easy to read, fast-paced, and typically have a twist lurking towards the last few pages.

What does this mean for the writers who strive to write the next great American novel? To be commercially successful would it be best to drop the metaphors and opt for car chases? In a world where the majority prefers to read entertaining trash instead of enlightening and thought-provoking works of art what is an author to do? Sell your soul and write a rerun series where good guy triumphs over bad guy?

And what demographic is purchasing these novels? It’s easy for me to imagine little old ladies in book clubs eating through something called The Double Comfort Safari Club, but I know men older and younger alike who love cop novels. Are they on the bestseller list because they appeal to such a wide demographic? Probably.

Thrillers and crime fiction have seen such an increase in popularity over the last decade that Patrick Anderson wrote a book on it called The Triumph of the Thriller in 2007 and Columbia professor Andrew Gelman wrote an article about it in March (obviously my ideas for posts are not particularly unique, oh well).