Faking It

**Warning: Vivi is in a mood. Brace yourself for a rant.**

You know what drives me nuts? The phrase fake it til you make it.

And hyperbole in advertising. I love hyperbole (so tempted to make a hyperbolic statement about the depth of my love for hyperbole here), and I hate it when my favorite literary device is abused for selfish gain. Abused for comedy? Heaven. All other abuses should be punishable by medieval torture devices. (Can you tell I've been watching the Tudors lately?)

The literary devise of hyperbolic exaggeration has been absorbed by the marketing and advertising gurus. It has become hype. Advertisers can't come right out and lie, but bending the truth is another matter.

Seriously, how many cars can be the Number One Car in America? And how many times do we hear "The critics agree! Movie X is the Best Film of the Decade!" Technically, all you need are two critics who agree your film is the best, but the implication is that all the critics love you. And the belief is that the public will then want to jump on the awesomeness bandwagon that is your movie.

It's all about manipulation for profit. I hate being manipulated.

What does this have to do with being an author? A couple weeks back I was visiting an author's website and I saw the phrase "bestselling novel!" attached to a book which I knew for a fact did not belong in that category.

It drives me nuts when authors hype themselves as "bestselling" without context. There are certain bestseller lists (New York Times, USA Today) which are THE bestseller lists, but there are dozens of others and if you want to draw your circle small enough, just about anyone with a book out can be a "best" seller.

Serengeti Heat hit a number of ebook sales site bestseller lists. It was number one at MBaM and it still (much to my surprise and delight) periodically jumps up onto the Kindle Romance list. Am I calling myself a bestselling author? Hell no. Who would I be kidding?

Months back, I gushed about SH making some sales lists here at the blog, but that was more about sharing my excitement over the fact that people seemed to be liking it rather than any attempt to say "Look! It's a bestselling book! Everyone is reading it, so you should too!" And I'm always very careful to keep things within the context of it being a MBaM or ARe or eBookwise bestseller.

Those lists are a pleasure to be on, but they ain't NYT. And until I'm on one of the Big Lists, I'm not going to throw around accolades I haven't earned in an attempt to con my way to the top.

What do you think? Fake it til you make it or honesty all the way? Is there dishonor in manipulative exaggeration or is that just the name of the game? Am I naive to be offended by the abuse of hyperbole?