Our bestseller list The New List exclusively tracks new releases based on Circana Bookscan data. With lists updating on Fridays, we’re bringing you highlights weekly in Lunch, along with the complete fiction and nonfiction hardcover lists. These are the highlights for Friday, June 20. Elin Hilderbrand’s 30th novel in her Nantucket series, Swan Song, tops the fiction hardcover list, toppling Eruption by Michael Crichton, which fell to second place. Camino Ghosts by John Grisham, previously No. 2, has been pushed to No. 3. You Like It Darker by Stephen King, now fourth, has now been on the list for four […]
People 6/21
Here’s A First: Some Actual Amazon Book Sales Data
Business Insider obtained a rare document: A 25 page confidential report, “used for a weekly business review at Amazon,” that provides data about their book retailing business for the first 10 months of 2022. It’s not the complete data of our dreams, and the reporter has not posted the full document so there are many nuances and gray areas that still leave us with more questions than definitive conclusions. (Per their historical policy of not providing data like this on an official basis, the company declined to provide any clarity on the data, or validate the article in any way.) […]
Booktopia Searches for Funding in Order to Continue As a Going Concern
On Friday, Australian bookseller Booktopia requested an extension of the voluntary suspension of their securities, making clearer how dire their financial situation has become as the company seeks funding in order to continue operating. Last week, the company suspended trading shares pending an announcement about the outcome of its strategic review, which has been delayed in multiple press releases and is now expected to be made on June 28. In a letter to the Australian Stock Exchange, the company noted that it has had ongoing “liquidity challenges” and is looking for funding “both to meet redundancy costs and to provide […]
Ask an Expert: Gail Hochman
Gail Hochman is the president of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. For 20 years, she was the head of the AALA, the Association of American Literary Agents. She represents authors in numerous genres, including literary fiction, mystery, children’s middle grade, and serious nonfiction. Do you have any advice on how many agents to query at a time? If they are personalized, perhaps a rolling query with a limit? I would say get your core group of favorites first, and send to them—maybe five or six. Realize that many people these days do not answer queries when they are not […]