How to become a best selling author

Given the royalties of a standard contract, an author selling 20,000 books priced at $25 would earn $65,625 the first week on the “New York Times” best–seller list. This is not quite the millions superstar authors bank, but if the book continues to sell, these earnings add up to an impressive income.

The general consensus is that if you want to make your way onto a best-seller list, any best-seller list, you have to sell at least 5,000 books in a week, or maybe 10,000. Beyond that, things get complicated depending on which list you‘re looking to end up on.

If you mean “getting published and some consistent sales,” then your odds are about 1 in 100 if you factor in all the self-published books that only sell a few copies. If you mean “being able to make a living writing,” your odds are about 1 in 10000, but you will probably be doing other writing than just books.

James Patterson // An estimated 300 million

Patterson is frequently thought to be the best–selling author in the world today, and has been since 2001. He’s also credited as the first author to sell 1 million e-books, and is generally listed as the author with the most New York Times bestsellers.

According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed.