What causes a book to be popular?

Question

Like, for example, the Harry Potter Series. Yes, it is fantastic and I love it but I'm sure there are other series that are really good too- why did one take off and the other didn't? It seems to me like it just falls into place, but is there maybe a reason for it?

Yes, I know thats how it happens, but why one and not the other? Two equally good books and only one of them is shouted and screamed about.

Answer 1

Well let's see. There are all those people out there saying "Oh my God you got to read this, you got to read this, you got to read this!"

Answer 2

Of course there's a reason for it!

Marketing and promotional work. Harry Potter (and many others) spend millions to promote their books. And getting your book mention in a magazine or show (Opra will automatically get your book on the best seller list, and I'm not joking).

Niche writing. As a rule Nonfiction books sell better than fiction. Why? Because more people like nonfiction than fiction. (Ask about this if you want to know more).

Good writing. Plain and simple. While both of the previous areas will send a book to many readers its breaking through to people who usually DON'T read is where the big bucks lay. Having a really great written book is the key to this.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Advertising.

Lots of kids who had never picked up a fantasy novel in their lives read Harry Potter, because they heard it was good. It became like a 'fad'. There are lots of great book series that never come out of the 'underground' because the word isnt spread about them.

Answer 4

If it were as simple as advertising, then a lot of books would be equally popular...but Harry Potter books really stand out, don't they? A number of people have written about this, and here is an answer from author John Granger, taken from the following website:

http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/harry_potter_granger.htm

(some of this makes more sense if your read the whole website)

WHY THE POTTER BOOKS ARE SO POPULAR

In conclusion, to understand the meaning and popularity of Chamber of Secrets, 'Remember Cedric Diggory!' As with C. S. Lewis's Narnia and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Rowling's Harry Potter books enjoy such remarkable sales and popularity because of:

1) The Need for them: Lewis described the aims of education in modern times as 'irrigating a desert' in contrast to the popular belief that it is 'to cut down jungles' or clear away delusions (see The Abolition of Man , page 24, for the allusion and The Last Battle for its illustration in story). The desert that needs water is both spiritual and mental. Soft heads and hard hearts long for truth, beauty, and goodness even though they have been taught to despise or disregard these as subjective or sentimental qualities. Maslow said 'a capacity is a need'; our denied or misdirected spiritual capacities have created a nearly irresistible craving and need for Inkling quality reading.

2) A WOW! Story: Whatever the demand for edifying literature, if it isn't engaging and entertaining as story it cannot have the desired effect. Ms. Rowling's detailed, magical world allows and invites head first immersion and suspension of disbelief. Her readers identify with Harry and are rushed to a catharsis in spirit with their hero via the imagination. They absorb, consciously and unconsciously, just sentiments, heroic virtue, and Christian doctrine while loving the adventures in which this moral education is wrapped. Ms. Rowling's affection for the works of Austen and Dickens (and her like talent for 'manners and morals' fiction and believable characters) is evident in every Potter book.

3) The Christian Meaning: The Harry Potter books do not offer a generic 'good over evil' message. Ms. Rowling writes the powerful, spiritual answer in story form to mankind's larger questions in the only language even a post Christian culture can understand: she writes in the symbols and doctrines of the Christian faith. Harry Potter fans enjoy a resurrection experience in every book and are awashin word pictures and images of Christ and souls in pursuit of perfection in Him. Without this specific meaning, Rowling could not have achieved her unprecedented popularity in a culture that only knows of God in these forms.

4) "Past Watchful Dragons": Lewis was aware of how repugnant anything "churchy" is to most people and especially to children. He once explained that his Narnia books were written to sneak 'past the watchful dragons' that guard our hearts against the Christian meaning of life. Harry Potter is so popular precisely because no one has stirred these dragons. Rowling, by means of her cinderella story, the cover of being anti-Christian, our cultural misogyny, and because she too is considered to be writing only harmless children's fantasy, has been able to bypass the much more ferocious and watchful dragons of our day. Her disguise (as 'welfare-mom Wicca-cultist') does the concealment job more effectively than wearing both Frodo's ring and Harry's Invisibility Cloak.

Answer 5

It is going to be popular if your book becomes best seller for the month for a year or two years. It needs a lot of commercial advertizing so people will buy it in that way it will become popular.

Answer 6

Word of mouth and advertising really set a book up for success all the author has to do is create greate content and the rest is up to the public.

Answer 7

Marketing

Answer 8

One the popularity of the author and also the popularity of the title and how many books have been sold by this author.

Answer 9

It's called marketing.

Answer 10

the more people that buy and read the book the better it is