Last week, we announced our bestseller list, The New List, which exclusively tracks new releases based on Circana Bookscan data. With lists updating on Fridays, we’ll bring you highlights weekly in Lunch, along with the complete fiction and nonfiction hardcover lists. For the week ending June 8, Eruption by Michael Crichton tops the hardcover nonfiction list, with Camino Ghosts by John Grisham at No. 2 (it was No. 1 the previous week). Stephen King’s stories You Like It Darker: Stories was in third. The title that has been on the list longest is Think Twice by Harlan Coben, now tenth, which […]
Bestseller Radar
Introducing The New List
Backlist titles increasingly dominate the publishing landscape, comprising approximately 70 percent of all print book sales. The same statistic is true for top selling titles—of the top 200 books in 2022 and 2023, about 70 percent were published more than a year prior. Those older titles monopolize media bestseller lists, including the New York Times, leaving unrecognized many of the books that publishing staff are working on right now. But the original purpose of bestseller lists was to help readers recognize the hot new titles in the market. To help highlight which new titles are selling, we’re proud to announce […]
Tik Tok Shop Makes Its Own Bestsellers
The NYT finds Keila Shaheen’s The Shadow Work Journal — republished last month by Simon & Schuster’s Primero Sueño — one of at least a handful of homegrown TikTok Shop bestsellers. The Atlantic wrote about the book last September, when it was said to have sold 290,000 units through TikTokShop since April, “even as experts question its approach—and the author’s credentials.” Earlier this year, Shaheen reached a five-book, 50/50 profit-share deal with S&S, accompanied by a seven-figure advance, represented by Rebecca Gradinger and Albert Lee at UTA. The expanded S&S trade paperback has sold a little under 22,000 copies since […]
The New Bestsellers of 2023
As always, backlist titles dominated the top-selling books of last year. Of the top 200 books on Circana Bookscan through December 23, 2023 (their week 51, so nearly final)—including paperbacks and new editions—142 were more than a year old, in line with the roughly 70 percent of all print unit sales comprised by backlist titles. Classics such as The Outsiders and 1984 and perennial kids favorites from Eric Carle and Sandra Boynton took their spots on the list, as did books with big media tie-ins (which have been bestsellers in their own right): Killers of the Flower Moon, Daisy Jones […]
RIP WSJ Bestseller Lists
On November 4 the Wall Street Journal published their final set of book bestseller lists licensed from Circana Bookscan (for the sales week ending October 28). After 14 years of licensing Bookscan data, Dow Jones decided to let their agreement expire. The newspaper began using Bookscan print book sales data for their bestseller lists in 2009 and in late 2011 Bookscan started supplying them with ebook sales data for inclusion in the WSJ charts as well.
Bookstat Posts Monthly Bestseller Lists
Bookstat, which imputes online book sales in real time, has started posting monthly ebook and digital audiobook bestseller lists on LinkedIn. While the service’s promotional materials tout their monitoring of self-published sales, the inaugural lists are dominated by titles from publishers. Two self-published authors make the ebook list: Catharina Maura (#13) and Emily Rath (#16).