Bestseller Radar

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]