Best Selling Author - say what?!

I went to a trivia contest last night with some of my writing friends - and new friends! Fun fun! I think I answered one question correct, and even that was a guess. I might not be good at trivia, but hey, I sit at the right table so hah! I think we came in second. Pretty sure we did. Okay maybe tied with three other tables but still second. The point - it was fun.

But some of the questions really got me thinking about what a best-selling author was. And how to be a best selling author. So I googled. Spent too much time googling instead of working on Survival Zone, but I still might get there.

What did I learn today - The odds of winning the lottery, in Canada, that's 6-49, are 1 in 14 million. Whoa. Not bad, right? Yeah. No, I'm not rushing out to get a ticket. Lotto Max, the odds are 1 in over 28 million. You've got a better chance at getting hit by lightning, by far, because those odds are one in less than a million. I do not like those odds.  In the US, your odds of winning the power ball are 1 in almost 300 million!

There's the odds. Now, let's talk about being a best selling author. Sell 5000 books a week - that show up in Bookscan. So technically, you could be selling more copies than the bestseller, but still not be counted as a best seller. But this number is just a number, and in a slow week of sales, it could be a lot less than 5000, on a busy week, it may be much higher. We're talking odds again.

To be in the top 5 for Amazon, you need to sell maybe 300 books a week. There's a big difference from 5000 a week down to 300 a week. But the odds of this happening, after writing the best book I can, hiring editors, etc., to make it even better, marketing in all the right spots - yeah, I think I'll take my chances here. I like my odds better for being a best-selling author much better than winning the lottery - or getting hit by lightning. And now, back to work on writing to better improve my odds! Have a great day and Happy Valentine's day!

And if you've got any better tips for making the odds better - I'm all ears!