Fiction: A Hard Sell

I took the bait.

There it was, taunting me. Right next to Amazon.com Sales Rank: #404,829 in Books for my book was this: (See Top Sellers in Books). Is this something new that Amazon's doing? I'd never noticed it there before. 

Can't say that I like it being there. Do those books on the list really need MORE sales? No, of course not. And it seems a bit offensive, as if Amazon is subliminally (or maybe not so subliminally) suggesting to its customers, "Why buy a book ranked #404,829, when you can buy one of these Top Sellers?" 

What's most troubling, though, are the books on that Top Sellers list.

Of the top 25, how many would you guess are fiction? Half maybe? One-third? You'd be wrong.

Only 3 of the top 25 are fiction. And the top selling fiction on the list was written by an author who's been dead for 42 years. Can you guess what book that is? It's "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis, ranked at No. 9.

If you think hard enough, you should be able to guess the other two fiction titles on the list. Okay, time's up. The answers are "The Da Vinci Code" (No. 13) and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (No. 25).

What else is troubling about the list? Well, two of the non-fiction titles (ranked Nos. 2 and 7) probably should be considered fiction, since the author of these books, "A Million Little Pieces" and "My Friend Leonard", James Frey, is, apparently, lying about those little pieces of his life, if The Smoking Gun is correct.

All of which makes being a true fiction writer more than just a little bit depressing.