The Truth: Book Awards, Bestsellers and Contest Winners

I’m going to tell you things that may shock you today. Or at least make you think ‘what the hell?’ Are you ready?

First of all the Giller Prize. A fancy, dancy book award. Turns out Giller Prize books may not even be read by the judges. Uh, huh. You heard me. They end up with more books nominated than the poor judges could read in a year. So what do they do? Well, some of them grab page one, read it, flip through to about middle, read another page, then flip to some spot near the end and read there too. If they like those couple of pages, then it wins. Yup. That’s why some award winners make you wonder.

Bestsellers. Until about two years ago bestseller lists were compiled not actually from how well books sold. There wasn’t even a way to tell which books were selling the best. Newspapers with their bestseller lists would call up local bookstores and ask what they thought was selling the best. Dear lord. I’ve heard that in the past few years things have changed and that the lists may actually be accurate. Still, it kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

And Amazon’s bestselling list (while magical in its formula–and a secret too) is also misleading. You can claim that your book was a book that sold in the Amazon top 100. Okay, yes. Maybe it did for a second. But that means pretty much nothing, according to some. It seems as though the results can be tinkered with and you can make your book launch into the bestselling 100 for a minute or two if you have the right technique. Some argue that you can’t. Basically, from what I hear, nobody’s buying it if you claim amazing stats from your book sales over on Amazon. Unless you are Dan Brown or JK Rowling.

Back to contests. Aspiring writers are told by some to enter contests left, right and center. Go win one. Go place in one. If you do, you’ll get an agent’s attention, plus you will have some credentials to put in your query. Thing is, apparently nobody cares unless you win. Thing is, you have to win more than your local contest. You have to win a major contest. MAJOR contest. Otherwise, the assumption is that you were simply the best in the pile of crap that came in.

Sorry to shatter your perceptions, but well, it had to be done. I hope you’ll forgive me.