Probably close to 1:1000 after you filter out most of the obvious crap that gets submitted. Maybe these are worthwhile odds for you, I don’t know. If so, good luck, you’ll need it.
Fiction vs. non-fiction makes a huge difference in luck vs. skill.
For non-fiction, the relevant skill of course is marketing, not writing. Where “marketing” includes such subskills as defining a topic and/or title that people will actually buy, and planning how to market the book before spending time on actually writing it. (Tim Ferriss, for example, determined the title of “The Four-Hour Workweek” by empirical testing using Google Adwords.)
Note too that professional authors do not simply write books and send them to publishers; they write proposals… which to be accepted generally require evidence of the aforementioned marketing work.
(All this being said, I have zero expertise in the fiction book business; it may be that there are more ways to convert luck to skill than I am aware of in that department as well. Certainly there are ways to manipulate sales there, build a brand, accumulate a following, etc.)
I already mentioned a fellow LWer who I expect to have another bestseller soon; I feel confident predicting it because I know his marketing skill, available endorsement sources, personal platform, and how hard he’s been working the tour circuit while the book was still in pre-sales. I will be very surprised if the book doesn’t attain “bestseller” status on at least one bestseller list soon.
(Do remember that “bestseller” does not automatically equal “cultural phenomenon”. There are thousands of “bestsellers” in the US alone each year, and most of them are books you have never, ever heard of, and quite possibly never will.)
Anyway, one of the most relevant factors in determining an author’s marketing strength is the size of their “platform”, and it’s relevant for both fiction and non-fiction. A platform is basically how many people the author can reach, as far as personal influence to purchase. The term comes from the notion of platform speaking, i.e., influence by getting up on stage and talking to people. So a person who is on a lecture circuit, or better yet has their own TV or radio show, or fan club, etc., has more built-in bestseller power than someone who does not. Email lists, podcast subscribers, forum followers… any number of such things count.
Platform size is relevant because really, this is the main group of people who will buy the book, i.e., people who have become fans of the author, even if they are fans for some reason unrelated to writing. Most books are scarcely advertised at all, and are thus almost entirely dependent on the author to create demand. (Which is why an existing platform and willingness to work the publicity circuit are part of publishers’ acceptance criteria.)
So… if somebody doesn’t know and take into consideration at least as much information about book sales as I have listed above, they would indeed require a great deal of luck to be successful. OTOH, somebody like Eliezer or the other LW author I mentioned (who have large platforms of fans who they can easily reach) can have bestsellers with a lot less luck required, assuming the topic is one that has appeal to their platform. Indeed, with a sufficiently large platform, one can have a bestseller on some lists (e.g. some of Amazon’s lists) simply by co-ordinating the timing of fans’ purchases.
Fiction vs. non-fiction makes a huge difference in luck vs. skill.
For non-fiction, the relevant skill of course is marketing, not writing. Where “marketing” includes such subskills as defining a topic and/or title that people will actually buy, and planning how to market the book before spending time on actually writing it. (Tim Ferriss, for example, determined the title of “The Four-Hour Workweek” by empirical testing using Google Adwords.)
Note too that professional authors do not simply write books and send them to publishers; they write proposals… which to be accepted generally require evidence of the aforementioned marketing work.
(All this being said, I have zero expertise in the fiction book business; it may be that there are more ways to convert luck to skill than I am aware of in that department as well. Certainly there are ways to manipulate sales there, build a brand, accumulate a following, etc.)
I already mentioned a fellow LWer who I expect to have another bestseller soon; I feel confident predicting it because I know his marketing skill, available endorsement sources, personal platform, and how hard he’s been working the tour circuit while the book was still in pre-sales. I will be very surprised if the book doesn’t attain “bestseller” status on at least one bestseller list soon.
(Do remember that “bestseller” does not automatically equal “cultural phenomenon”. There are thousands of “bestsellers” in the US alone each year, and most of them are books you have never, ever heard of, and quite possibly never will.)
Anyway, one of the most relevant factors in determining an author’s marketing strength is the size of their “platform”, and it’s relevant for both fiction and non-fiction. A platform is basically how many people the author can reach, as far as personal influence to purchase. The term comes from the notion of platform speaking, i.e., influence by getting up on stage and talking to people. So a person who is on a lecture circuit, or better yet has their own TV or radio show, or fan club, etc., has more built-in bestseller power than someone who does not. Email lists, podcast subscribers, forum followers… any number of such things count.
Platform size is relevant because really, this is the main group of people who will buy the book, i.e., people who have become fans of the author, even if they are fans for some reason unrelated to writing. Most books are scarcely advertised at all, and are thus almost entirely dependent on the author to create demand. (Which is why an existing platform and willingness to work the publicity circuit are part of publishers’ acceptance criteria.)
So… if somebody doesn’t know and take into consideration at least as much information about book sales as I have listed above, they would indeed require a great deal of luck to be successful. OTOH, somebody like Eliezer or the other LW author I mentioned (who have large platforms of fans who they can easily reach) can have bestsellers with a lot less luck required, assuming the topic is one that has appeal to their platform. Indeed, with a sufficiently large platform, one can have a bestseller on some lists (e.g. some of Amazon’s lists) simply by co-ordinating the timing of fans’ purchases.