Are you thinking of publishing a book? If so, you're probably wondering how to stack the odds in your favor, in terms of market success. And if you're not thinking that, you should be. Why? There are three hundred thousand new titles published every year in America. Of that, no more than a few hundred make the New York Times list.

But that's not the worst of it . . . most bestsellers are written by authors who wrote bestsellers before. In any given year, fewer than fifty debut authors ...