What qualities, in your opinion, make a book a "Best Seller"?

A 'best seller' is a book whose copies are sold in thousands. There is an inner urge in the reading public to buy such a book. The general reading public are normally averse to spending money on books. As a result, most of the books just gather dust in the shelves; they do not sell at all unless the sales are pushed up through advertisements and other forms of media publicity. But there are exceptions; those exceptions sell like hot cakes as soon as they are published and continue to sell for years to come. The question is: Why do these books, just a few in number, sell well?

The Bible is one of those books that are sold in large numbers. What is the reason for the Bible to be a best seller? The Bible is sacred to the Christians, and there are many Christians in the world; every Christian home will generally have a copy of the Bible. The Bible tells the story of the Jews, and of the birth and death of Christ, the Saviour. Besides, the Bible contains holy teachings which, though more honoured in the breach than in the observance thereof, are sacred to the Christians. If the reason for the abundant sale of the Bible indicates anything, it is this: a book whose content is sacred to thousands and thousands of people becomes ipso facto a best seller.

If the religious character of a book boosts up its sales, it may so happen that the non-religious, blasphemous character of a book also can increase its sales. We have the classic example of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. To the devout Muslims The Satanic Verses is an irreligious book written with the obvious intention of attacking Islam and its founder Prophet Mohammed. The devout Muslims raised a hue and cry against the book and its author; the book, they say, is for burning. A top religious leader made a call for the 'liquidation' of the author of the book. All this arouses the curiosity of the reading public; everyone who hears about the book desires to have a copy. The book becomes a best seller. It is the controversial nature of the book that makes it a best seller.

It is not religion alone that makes a book controversial; political commitments, socio-political compulsions and prejudice and perceptions arising from loyalties to one political system or the other also do. For example, Pastermack's Dr. Zhivago and Alexander Solzhenitayn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch gained popularity enough in the West to become best sellers because of the controversial nature of the books and of the implicit criticism of Stalinist Russia contained in them. In other words, the controversy generated by the novels was primarily responsible for the sale of the books soon after they were published. The international recognition won by the books also accounted for their popularity.
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Source: www.englishdaily626.com