When USA Today told us in our Monday report that they were “keeping a very close eye on the rapidly developing e-book marketplace” and “actively discussing how [their] list ought to evolve to reflect changes in publishing,” they really meant it. In advance of tomorrow’s new bestseller list for the week ending February 6, the paper writes today that self-epublished sensation Amanda Hocking will have three of her YA paranormals appear on the list for the first time–all among the top 50 titles. This comes as the NYT ebooks bestseller list debuts for the public with an exclusion for self-published […]
Bestseller Radar
What Makes An eBook Bestseller?
So we’re still wrestling with some of the mysteries of what makes an ebook bestseller, as defined by the New York Times and others. It turns out our supposition that Lisa Gardner’s ALONE–Number One on the Kindle bestseller list with as part of a 99-cent promotion–was disqualified for listing because of price was not correct. Communications director Danielle Rhoades Ha says, “The New York Times does not exclude e-books based on price. In fact none of the e-book lists carry price.” That said, it’s not clear what other undeclared reason the paper used to not list ALONE. Over at USA […]
Arizona Tragedy Boosts Demand for Book of 9/11 Babies
The death of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green in the Arizona shootings has brought national attention to a previously-overlooked 2002 book from HCI, FACES OF HOPE. The title presents pictures of 50 babies born on 9/11/2001, one from each state, along with messages of hope for their future, with Green’s baby picture representing Arizona. For anyone who missed the first wave of attention for the book, President Obama cited it again in last night’s nationally-televised speech: “As has already been mentioned, Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in […]
2010’s Top Bestsellers
Nielsen BookScan published today point-of-sales data for the week ending January 2, 2010, and updated their corresponding year-to-date bestseller lists to cover all 52 selling weeks of 2010. You will find below the top 15 print books as tracked by Nielsen BookScan in the outlets they cover for adult nonfiction, adult fiction, and overall juvenile titles. Former president George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush both make an otherwise eclectic nonfiction list, as Mr. Bush’s chart-topping book well outsold last year’s No. 1 nonfiction title by Sarah Palin. As expected, Stieg Larsson dominates the fiction list, with the […]
Wimpy Still Beats the Field
Abrams updated sales information on sales of Jeff Kinney’s new DIARY OF A WIMPY KID book, published four weeks, now with 6.5 million copies in print after three reprints. CEO Michael Jacobs says they have tracked nearly 2 million copies sold through the trade in the first four weeks, which “has exceeded all of our expectations in all markets.” Abrams also sells a considerable quantity of books in the school market through Scholastic’s book clubs and fairs (roughly equivalent to the trade market) but that sell-through is harder to track precisely in real-time. Those trade sales are up 35 percent […]
Amazon Provides Authors with Limited Nielsen BookScan Data
As of today Amazon is letting authors enrolled in their “Author Central” program (e.g. FiledBy for Amazon) access a small window of Nielsen BookScan sales data for their own books. Needless to say, the offer is a major inducement for authors not already enrolled to sign up for the Author Central. The program shows the most recent four weeks of sales as tracked by Nielsen, on a week-by-week basis. It also provides geographical breakdowns, showing the same limited data set according to local DMA markets. They provide a nice visual national mapping of the data that Nielsen itself provides to […]