On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Joe Solari explores why publishing success formulas so often fail. Drawing on a landmark study of cultural markets, he explains how randomness and social feedback loops mean that even books of similar quality can have wildly different outcomes. The good news? The market isn't locked—new winners emerge constantly. Rather than chasing guaranteed recipes, Solari argues authors should focus on building durable advantages and staying in the game long enough for luck to find them.
Listen to the Podcast: Why Recipes for Publishing Success Don't Work
About the Host
Joe Solari assists authors in developing successful businesses as the managing partner of Author Ventures LLC. In his role as a business manager, he supports his private clients, who collectively achieved gross royalties of twenty-two million in 2023, with an average pre-tax profit of 44%. This remarkable success results from implementing disciplined business strategies and maintaining an unwavering dedication to enhancing the customer experience.
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Read the Transcript
Joe Solari: Today we're going to break down success in publishing and talk about dealing with the significant random component that no amount of tactical execution can eliminate. I'm also going to tell you something hopeful: the market isn't locked. New winners emerge constantly. The question is whether you understand the game well enough to position yourself for when luck finds you.
This is about understanding power law markets, the role of randomness in success, and why most publishing education fundamentally misunderstands how winners actually emerge in the marketplace.
The Artificial Cultural Market Study
Let's start with one of the most important experiments ever conducted about cultural markets. In 2006, Matthew Salganik, Peter Dodds, and Duncan Watts ran an experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. This experiment should change how you think about success in creative markets. It certainly did for me.
They created an artificial music market — a website where people could discover, listen to, and download songs by unknown bands. Here's the setup: 14,000 participants, 48 songs. They created nine separate worlds — nine parallel markets where different groups of people could discover and download the same songs. In some worlds, participants could see how many times each song had been downloaded. In other worlds, there was no social information at all. The question was simple: would the same songs become hits in every world?
The answer was shocking. No — not even close. In worlds without social information, where people just listened and decided what they liked, success was more evenly distributed. Songs that were objectively higher quality, as measured by an independent rating system, did somewhat better. But no massive hits emerged consistently across all nine markets.
In the worlds with social information, where people could see download counts, power law distributions emerged. A few songs became massive hits. Most songs failed. Classic winner-take-all dynamics.
Here's the critical finding. Different songs became hits in different worlds. The song that finished first in one world finished fortieth in another. The exact same songs, presented to a similar audience with the same social mechanics, produced completely different winners. Success was partially random — not completely random. The very worst songs never became hits, but among songs of reasonable quality, which ones broke through was substantially unpredictable.
Let me repeat that because it's important: success in winner-take-all markets is partially random, even when the products and the mechanics are identical.
Publishing Is Exactly This Kind of Market
Now let's connect this to publishing, because publishing is exactly this kind of market. Readers discover books through social signals — Amazon recommendations, bestseller lists, word of mouth. The exact dynamics that create unpredictable winners in the music experiment are the same in publishing, because they're both complex self-organizing systems. Recipes don't work to cause direct effects. They can only create some form of influence in a system that self-organizes.
This explains something you've probably observed: books that seem similar in quality often have wildly different outcomes. One author's series takes off and hits seven figures. Another series of comparable quality and marketing languishes. The recipe sellers will tell you that the successful author must have done something different — better covers, better blurbs, better ads, better something. But the artificial cultural market study suggests another explanation: they got lucky. It was timing and initial momentum that triggered cumulative advantage.
Here's how cumulative advantage works in these markets. Small, random differences in early visibility create small differences in downloads or purchases. Those small differences become visible through social signals like bestseller rankings. They're then massively amplified by recommendation algorithms that increase visibility further, which leads to more purchases. The feedback loop amplifies initial randomness into massive outcome differences. The book that got a few early adopters through pure chance can end up dominating the market — not because it was meaningfully better, but because early luck triggered a compounding advantage cycle.
This is why publishing is a power law market: not because the best books always win, but because social feedback mechanisms amplify initial differences into exponential outcomes. And this is why recipes fail. Recipes assume success comes from execution. But when success has a significant random component, execution alone can't guarantee the outcome.
The Hopeful Part: The Market Isn't Locked
Here's the hopeful part that the study also reveals: these markets aren't locked. New winners can emerge. The power law distribution is constantly churning.
Yes, authors currently at seven figures have advantages. Yes, they have competitive moats. Yes, they are hard to displace directly. But the market isn't a fixed hierarchy — it's a dynamic system where new authors break through constantly. The same randomness and social feedback loops that created current winners can create new winners.
Think about how readers discover books. They follow their favorite authors, but they also browse bestseller lists, click on ‘also bought' recommendations, talk to friends, see things on social media, and then try new authors. Every one of those discovery mechanisms creates opportunities for new entrants. A book that catches early momentum for random reasons — a social media post that goes viral, an influencer mentioning it at the right moment — can trigger the same cumulative advantage.
The artificial cultural market study proves this. When they reset the markets and ran the experiment again, different winners emerged. The previous winners didn't automatically win again. Publishing works the same way. The current bestsellers won't all be bestsellers in five years. New authors will break through. The question is whether you're positioned to be one of them.
Why Six-Figure Formulas Fail
If success were purely deterministic — if the best book with the best marketing always won — then recipes might work. You do X and Y to get Z. The causality would be direct. But the artificial cultural market study proves success isn't purely deterministic. It has significant random components.
First: execution doesn't guarantee outcomes. You can do everything right and still not break through, because you didn't get an early momentum lottery ticket that triggers cumulative advantage.
Second: backwards analysis of successful authors is misleading. When someone analyzes a seven-figure author and packages what they did as a recipe, they're reverse-engineering success without accounting for the random components that may have been critical. The author ran Facebook ads — but they also happened to get featured in a major book blog. The recipe tells you it's Facebook ads. It doesn't tell you about the blog feature, which was partially luck and timing.
Third: timing matters more than tactics. The same tactics that work brilliantly one time may not work later. The system is complex and self-organizing, so there's never going to be a direct correlation every time between activities and outcomes. You can only test and recalibrate.
Fourth: more people following the same recipe makes that recipe less effective. If a thousand authors all implement the exact same launch strategy, they're all competing for the same early momentum signals. This is the musical chairs problem, intensified. Not only are there limited seats, but following the same popular recipe puts you in the largest group fighting for those seats.
Quality Still Matters — Just Not as the Main Determinant
Here's where it gets nuanced. The artificial cultural market study showed that the very worst songs never became hits, even with social influence. And the very best songs did better on average across all worlds, even if they weren't always number one. Quality matters — it's just not determinative.
This means the very bottom is relatively stable. Authors who don't execute the basics — poor covers, weak writing, no marketing — rarely break through. The quality floor does exist. The very top is somewhat stable. Authors with massive cumulative advantages — huge mailing lists, recognized brands, platform relationships — are hard to displace completely. They might drop from rank ten to fifty, but they rarely fall into obscurity unless they stop producing.
But the middle is constantly churning. Authors making five to fifty thousand dollars are in a zone where randomness and competitive dynamics create constant reshuffling, and where catching a momentum break can move them upward. This is how new authors break through, how established authors plateau or decline, and how taste changes open up new opportunities.
What to Actually Do About It
First: position yourself where luck can find you. You can't control when momentum hits, but you can control whether you're ready when it does. This means maintaining consistent quality so that when readers discover you, they'll stick. Building a back catalog so momentum on one book spreads to others. Cultivating an audience through personalized touchpoints so that random visibility can convert into lasting relationships. And operating efficiently so you can sustain your business through the dry spells between breaks.
Think of it like poker. You can't control what cards you're dealt, but you can position yourself to capitalize when you get the good cards — and survive when you don't.
Second: take multiple shots on goal. If any single book's success has random components, publishing more books increases your probability of catching momentum. This isn't a pure volume play — quality matters. It's about creating more opportunities for luck to strike. Ten quality books have a better chance of catching a random moment than one quality book. It's that simple.
Third: build advantages that compound regardless of any single launch. Some advantages depend on momentum — algorithmic visibility, bestseller rank placement. These are fragile because they depend on catching breaks. Other advantages compound even without momentum: email list growth, audience relationship depth, brand recognition, operational efficiencies, strategic partnerships. These are durable because they accumulate independently of any single random break. Focus on durable advantages. They increase your baseline probability of success and help you capitalize when the random break does occur.
Fourth: understand you're playing a probability game, not a certainty game. Recipes sell certainty. Do this, get that. But the artificial cultural market study proves certainty is false. Success in these markets is probabilistic. This means you can do everything right and still not break through. That's not failure — that's probability. Assess decisions by expected value, not guaranteed outcome. Diversify your shots on goal instead of putting everything into one perfect launch. Measure progress by whether you're building durable advantages, not by any single book's outcome.
Fifth: accept that the market rewards strategic patience. If success has random components, then time in the market matters. The longer you can stay in the game with quality work and durable advantages, the more opportunities you have to catch that momentum. The authors who scale aren't always the ones who executed perfectly — they're often the ones who executed consistently for long enough that probability eventually worked in their favor.
Established Authors Aren't Protected from Randomness Either
Here's something the cultural market study reveals that should give you hope. Being an established winner doesn't protect you from randomness. Current bestsellers have advantages, but they don't control the momentum lottery any better than you do. They can't guarantee that their next book catches the random breaks that amplify it to massive success.
New entrants can compete — not by having bigger budgets or better tactics, but by taking more shots on goal and positioning themselves to capitalize when they do catch a break. The market is constantly looking for new winners. Reader tastes shift. Algorithms change. Social dynamics evolve. What worked last year might not work this year. Established authors are competing in a constantly shifting landscape just like you.
Your disadvantage is that you don't have accumulated advantages yet. Your advantage is that you can position yourself for where the market is going, not where it's been. You can take risks that established authors would be reluctant to take because of what they might lose. You can move faster. You can experiment more freely.
The musical chairs are real, but the music doesn't stop. Chairs are constantly opening up as authors fall out and new authors break through. The question isn't whether you can get a chair — the market proves that new entrants succeed constantly. The question is whether you're positioned to grab one when it opens.
A Framework for Scaling Given These Dynamics
Assess your positioning, not just your execution. Do you have the quality that meets the threshold where randomness can work for you? Are you taking enough shots on goal to increase your probability? Are you building durable advantages? Are you positioned in a part of the market where new entrants can break through?
Think in portfolio terms, not single bets. Don't put everything into one perfect launch and hope for certainty. Build a portfolio of books — your back catalog — that gives you depth and multiple chances. You can't control whether any one book catches momentum. You can control quality, consistency, audience building, and operational efficiency.
Play for time in the market. The longer you stay in the game with quality work, the more shots on goal you'll get. Build a business model that lets you sustain through dry spells. Make sure you're building a business that can get through the valleys, not just shooting for peaks. Don't burn out chasing certainty that doesn't exist.
Watch for market shifts where new opportunities open up. Reader preferences change. Platforms evolve. Competitive dynamics shift. Established authors age out or change focus. These shifts create windows where new entrants can break through more easily — because the probability now exists for the breakthrough.
Closing
Let me close with what I think is the most important insight from the artificial cultural market study. Success isn't random, but it's not deterministic either. It's probabilistic. Quality matters. Execution matters. Strategy matters. But they don't guarantee outcomes — they increase probability. And in a market where everyone is competing to catch the random breaks that trigger cumulative advantage, increasing probability is all that you get to control.
This is less comforting than recipes that promise certainty. I know that. But it's honest, and this honesty helps you make the best decisions you can in your business. You can't guarantee that you'll scale to six figures — the market structure and randomness factors mean that most authors won't, no matter how well they execute. But you can increase your probability by building quality, taking multiple shots, and building durable advantages.
Take it easy on yourself. You can't be responsible or feel guilty for not catching a break. That is just how this market works. The recipe myth ignores that randomness and pretends execution is determinative — that the reason the recipe didn't work is because you're not doing it the right way, or hard enough, or getting up early enough.
The musical chairs are real, but the game isn't rigged. New winners emerge constantly. The question is whether you understand the game well enough to position yourself where luck can find you. This is not a recipe. This is a strategy for working within a probability market. Strategy beats tactics every time.
Thanks for listening to the Publishing for Profit Podcast by ALLi. I'm your host, Joe Solari, and we'll see you next time.
