Miss CP has noticed a disturbing trend: Almost every single book she comes across exclaims (in big letters): Bestseller! Now, back the truck up as Tim the Tool Man used to say. If every single book is a bestseller, what does that make Miss Crankypants’ (and most of the writers she knows) books? Mid-sellers? OK-sellers? Meh-sellers?
The one word you do not want to use is LOSER. The publishers have a string of nice euphemisms to describe loser books. Used to be, there was nothing derisive about the term, “midlist author.” In fact, it used to mean you were getting paid to write books but you didn’t have to sweat under the klieg lights like the BESTsellers did. Nope. These midlist workhorses of the trade sat up in their lonely garrets, year after year, grinding out good books.  But not any more.
Now, idiotic phrases such as “Low sales” “moderate success,” or “sales coulda been better” are tossed about as if the authors were toddlers or your dog. You know, dog or kid parents who have to spell things out that they don’t want the critters to get? Instead of “Should we take the dog for a w-a-l-k?” editors politely say that unfortunately (there’s that word!) your book’s sales are waaay
d-o-w-n.
So where do all these bestsellers come from? Is there a place like Mount Olympus, where the publishing gods sit around sharpening their lightning bolts and deciding who gets to be BESTselling and who gets a big fat nothing? Miss Crankypants would find out for you, but she’s busy working on her bestseller. Deal with it.