I Started Reading Fiction From Authors Who’ve Sold 100 Million Books, This Is What I Learned

You know those reading lists with titles like “100 Books To Change Your Life”?

The ones that always contain Atomic Habits, Meditations, or Thinking Fast and Slow?

I hate those.

So, recently I decided to only read popular mass-market fiction by well-known authors who’ve sold at least 100 million books. We aren’t going high-brow here, either. No Tolstoy or Moby Dick. These are detective stories, thrillers, and all the other genres “smart people don’t read.”

Here’s what I learned…

Your Quality Of Writing Doesn’t Matter

With rare exceptions, like Michael Crichton or Stephen King, many successful authors have something of an amateurish writing style.

There are numerous video essays critiquing the Harry Potter series. And almost all of them criticize J. K. Rowling’s poor prose (such as her over-reliance on parentheses that create cumbersome run-on sentences).

But, she’s not alone.

The majority of popular writers have a clunky writing style that wouldn’t hold up in a college-level English class.