Sacha Black - The Anatomy of a Best Seller: 3 Steps to Deconstruct Winning Books and Teach Yourself Craft

THE ANATOMY OF A BEST SELLER

3 STEPS TO DECONSTRUCT WINNING BOOKS AND TEACH YOURSELF CRAFT

SACHA BLACK

The Anatomy of a Best Seller: 3 Steps to Deconstruct Winning Books and Teach Yourself Craft

Copyright July 2022 Sacha Black

The right of Sacha Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted, without permission of the copyright owner. Except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First Published July 2022, by Atlas Black Publishing

Cover design: Booklytical Designs

www.sachablack.co.uk

All rights reserved

For Cassie You know what you did, you naughty minx.

Reading is one of the closest things to magic. And if you disagree well, youre just plain wrong. Its a precious thing. Were taught as children, in the arms of parents and loved ones, to open our minds, fill our brains with wonder and worlds. When we read, we visit newfound places and worlds ladened with colors we dont have and creatures that shouldnt exist. Our brains draw rich images from wood pulp and ink, our hearts shudder with emotions for people that dont exist. What part of that isnt sorcery?

Now, readers, well, they experience magic. Thats one kinda drug. Im partial to it, I wont lie. But writers were the makers and creators of this mystical crack. We are the original magicians, pulling not rabbits but worlds from empty hats. And isnt that some kind of magnificent?

I like to start each craft book with a short spurt of necessary hyperbole. See, I dont like books that work in must-dos, have-to-dos and always. Fuck that. Rebel, my sweets. Rebel till your heart turns dark and your stories weep with the blood of your enemies.

That said, this book is going to contain some techniques and while I might say you need to do this or that, I dont mean it prescriptively. You dont have to do shit. Im not your book-mama, I dont dish out spankings well, actually Umm, never mind, wrong kind of textbook.

Look, the point is, dont let anyone tell you theres only one way to do something. I dont believe theres only one way to learn, and thats the case for craft too. Ill tell you what there is only one of though you. Only one author with your specific lens, your specific voice, and your specific way of looking at the world and characters. So, if you dont like the craft-noodles Im serving, you can get a different take out. Im not precious.

Actually, thats a lie. Im wildly precious. I never intended to write this book, but now I have, Im giddy with excitement to share it. The techniques folded between these pages are just the things I do. I didnt realize others saw them as useful and would want to use them too. But then arent all the best books surprises?

What Im trying to say is that everyone likes to dish out rules. Ill probably do it in here. But rules were made for breaking. You do you, Boo.

What This Book Is About

This book is about writing. Actually, its about reading. Maybe its about learning. Its about best sellers. Scrap that. Its about all the above.

If you want to improve your writing and be the best writer you can be, then at some point youre going to have to be active and do something about it. Youre going to have to learn. Some people take courses, some people listen to podcasts or watch YouTube channels, others read craft books. All of those options are valid. I personally dabble in a bit of everything. I probably always will. That is the fate of the perpetual learner. But see, theres another kind of learning that I think is possibly the most powerful of all.

Self-learning.

Except that us sensitive writers like to poison our brains and riddle our minds with doubt and a lack of confidence. Surely we cant just teach ourselves? We dont know what we dont know.

Bitch, please.

Did I not start this very chapter discussing the absolute magnificence that is our ability to conjure magical absurdities from fuck-nothing save the gooey biologically gray carcass inside our skull?

I did. Dont look back, it was rhetorical.

People We are fucking magicians.

YOU You are a magician. You might not know things right now.

But you can discover them.

You can be Indiana Jones and Howard Carter. If archeologists can dig up dinosaur-mummy bones, you can be damn sure us lowly writers can unearth a technique or two all by our onesies.

I know its scary to to trust oneself. But its going to be okay. Ive got your back.

This book will show you how to read differently. Its going to make you stop, then take a hot second to figure out the recipe for reader-crack.

If youre yet to find a method to teach yourself craft, this one might help. Try it, see if youre Cinders and the glass shoe fits.

I should warn, this book might change the way you read. But if it does, that doesnt mean you can only read this way forevermore. Lets not all be extremists, shall we? Theres too many of them in the world as it is. You want to read for pleasure, go do that. You want to read for pleasure the first time and then do the analysis? Cooooool, Im not here to stop you.

Some Caveats

Youre not interested in developing your craft. I mean do we really need to cover this? If youre happy with where your writing is at, this book probably isnt for you.

You dont want, or arent willing, to try reading in a new way.

*Pulls face*

Henry Ford said, If you always do what youve always done, youll always get what youve always got. There is one exception to that. If you like the way you read, and you feel youre getting enough techniques and tools from them because you learn by osmosis, then outstanding. Youre one of the lucky ones that doesnt need to intentionally dig deeper. Thats okay, read the book for info and take everything with a pinch of salt.

But if you want to get more from the books youre consuming, if you want to deepen your craft, then lets mix it up. Were going to put some razzle with your dazzle, try the unicorn pen, and sprinkle glitter in your ink. Its go time, bitches which brings me to my final caveat

You dont like dark humor or swear words.

Its a well-known fact Ive never been what society deems a lady. If you dont like it, ciao baby, its been real.

Still with me?

Excellent.

Lets get reading.

Is it just me or have you ever had a moment where reading has felt more like riding a shroom high as you dance in la-la land, and tripped off your tits at the exquisiteness of a book world?

No?

Just me?

Anyone?

Jeez, hard crowd.

Alright, but I bet you have totally and utterly fallen in love with a story at some point. You must have or you wouldnt be reading thisa book about how to actually, you know, do that to other readers.

What is a Best Seller?

It seems pertinent to actually define what I mean by a best seller before we get too far into the book. Why? Because what you might think of as a best seller at face value is not quite what Im going for here. Lets think of best seller as a tub of Neapolitan ice cream. For those that dont know, thats a tub of ice cream which has a strip of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Basically, the stuff of a 90s babys dreams.

You got your bog-standard vanilla flavor of best seller like the New York Times (NYT) list. Vanilla is the most common flavor for a reason. Its bland and palatable to most people. Which is why the NYT is vanilla in the ice cream tub because thats the type of best seller most of us think of when someone says, best seller. Included in this are the USA Today, Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal or any of several other lists touted as accolades by the names in the industry.