The ubiquity of the New York Times Bestseller list and its kin make instant winners out of their powerful voice and subsequent syndication. But what about the publishing companies? How do they choose what books to feature and which ones to throw on the discount books list?
This is all important first step in the making of a popular book writer, but what are publishers looking for? Without delving into specifics, publishers are looking for a product that they believe will become popular. But we're no closer to any sort of answer, just a circle of questions.
Featured works become popular, get increased attention as they sell more books, and over time become stalwarts of the book industry.
So what makes any piece of work something that will become popular? From music to books, art to wall coverings, industry leaders know what will make a popular product well before it reaches the shelf. While they are from time to wrong, they have a very good idea of what the "public at large" will buy.
But what do they see that we are not able to see? How do these leaders know which books should be discount paperback books, and which should be featured hardbacks?
Its obvious that they are able to see that essence that allows a piece of work to be able to connect to a world of highly different individuals that have quite varied reasons for liking a product. So how can they understand what such varied groups of individuals will want to see in a particular product line?
The simplest way to define the general idea behind this populism can be found in the principles of marketing. This is yet another field in which the leaders know how the public will react to images and words without ever having to do the expensive practice of "market research".
But we're still walking in circles here, and have come no closer to the answer of how industry leaders in any field are able to "know" whether a product will sell well or not, whether a book will be another one of the many discount books online
The reality is that the reasons behind "populism" have changed over time and location as cultures themselves have changed. So lets take our current situation as a talisman to be able to see the past and future more clearly.
In our current cultural environment, intensity rules the day. Books with over the top titles and content, music with words and beats that shove emotion on your soul, and marketing that "forces" you to click it rule the day. Our cultural constructs demand that we yell at each other to be heard, and this construct can be seen most obviously in our most popular works of the day.
To say that this or that will be popular is so far the place of a few industry leaders, but if other underlying trends latent in our society begin to take over the dominate ones today, we may see even this elitist trend start to decline in favor of a world where more than a small group of aristocrats tell the rest of the world what it will like on this day.
