Publishing Gatekeepers Are Not Fortune Tellers—They Get It Wrong All the Time

Posted on March 15, 2025 Updated on March 17, 2025

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The Illusion of Predicting a Bestseller

I don’t care what anyone says—no publisher, big or small, can guarantee who will be a bestseller. They get it wrong all the time. Sometimes it’s instinct, sometimes it’s a lucky guess, and sometimes they just think they know—but the truth? Readers decide.

The publishing industry likes to act as if it has a crystal ball, as if acquisitions editors and agents possess some supernatural ability to determine what will sell and what won’t. But they don’t.

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