Bestsellers

MINING THE DATABASE—We have made available a top-25 list that you can view here. It is updated weekly. Otherwise, our full research is currently available through Simba Information's Book Publishing Report (see more below).

During our early work with Tyndale House Publishers, we developed a web-based interface. Among its features was the ability to search by title, author or publisher and then view summary information about a title or see its List History (screenshot). We are planning to update this feature and make it available on a subscription basis. Please contact us if you are interested.

HISTORY—Tyndale House Publishers had a mega-hit on its hands in 2001, the Left Behind series, which was making waves on the bestseller lists. Looking for additional angles to use in publicity, we were asked to study the bestseller lists, which led to the present database.

As the database matured, various types of reports were generated, from regular summaries to detailed analysis performed to answer specific questions. For example, because we started the database a few months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, we were able to track trends in books on religion, Islam, and terrorism over the following months.

By 2006 the Left Behind series was winding down and Tyndale dropped its support of the project. We continued to maintain the database, focusing on the weekly lists, in hopes of securing another outlet.

What developed was a relationship with Simba Information, which began in early 2007 by supplying reports for use in their monthly electronic newsletter Book Publishing Report (BPR). Two standard reports are produced each month: a Scorecard summary of statistics for the previous month, and a Category Review, which looks at trends for a specific category of books, starting with the previous four quarters and then looking for trends over five years. In addition, a number of special reports are produced through the year, looking at comparison of top publishers, children's books, pricing, and other topics.

ABOUT THE LISTS—The uniqueness of our approach is to produce a consolidated ranking across all of the lists from the three publications, which tends to level some of the built-in biases inherent in each list, particularly NYT and PW. Altogether there are 595 entries on 21 separate weekly lists across all three publications, up from a total of 410 entries on 14 lists in early 2005.

Each list has its own unique structure (last updated February 2011):

Report Date—In order to be consistent, our analysis is based on the week for which sales are reported, through Saturday or Sunday. We use Sunday as the "report date." These are updated on the list websites by the end of the following week, with our update normally online by the following Monday. (The print publication date ranges from a few days after the sales report for USA, 8 days for PW, and 14 days for NYT).

Being Nr. 1—When we began tracking bestsellers in 2001, our Consolidated Ranking was based on editions of a book. The rating for each edition was determined by converting the combined ranking on the three lists to a percentile, with the top rating being 100.0. While it is possible for the same edition to be Nr. 1 in its classification on both NYT and PW, only one entry can be Nr. 1 on USA, since it consists of a single 150-item list.

It was normal at that time for a title to be released first in hardcover ("trade cloth"). If the publisher felt there was enough potential, the title would be reprinted in "trade paper" (same size as trade cloth, with a paper cover) exactly one year later, followed in another year by a smaller "pocket" sized ("mass market") edition. Having multiple editions of the same title on the lists at the same time was rare and when it did occur (as in the resurgence of a hardcover edition when a paper reprint was released), the older edition's rankings were usually inconsequential.

Changing Patterns—While the traditional pattern was followed by many publishers and authors, things began to change and accelerate through the first decade of the new millennium. Prolific authors like James Patterson started to break the mold, keeping a steady flow of bestsellers on the lists by alternating the release of new hardcover and reprints every four to six months. Not only was the edition cycle breaking out of the strict 12-month pattern, but we began to see some titles jump directly from hardcover to mass market, while others bypassed hardcover altogether, starting as trade paper and then reprinting as mass market.

The lists themselves also began to change. In September 2007 NYT split its Fiction Paperback list into separate Fiction Trade Paper and Fiction Mass Market lists. PW already had separate lists for trade paper and mass market (though mixed between fiction and nonfiction), but they only covered 15 items. In September 2010 PW expanded its four lists to 25-items.

Whether the lists were simply reflecting reality or actually contributing to change, by 2009 we began to see the simultaneous release of trade paper and mass market editions, often as movie or TV tie-ins based on the original hardcover bestseller. The voracious appetite of television has surely helped sustain made-for-television movies and series.

E-books—NYT and PW lists are centered on print formats. E-books started to appear on USA in 2010. They were not much of a factor until the last week of December 2010 when many of the top-ranked titles were attributed to e-book editions. As PW reported, this was likely due to a rush to load up Amazon Kindles, Barnes & Noble Nooks, Apple I-pods and I-pads, and other e-book capable devices received as Christmas gifts the previous week. The trend continued into January, adding pressure for us to switch from an edition- to a title-based model for our Consolidated Ranking.

From Editions to Titles—the impact of these changes began to produce problems with our edition-centered Consolidated Ranking as 2010 came to a close. Stieg Larsson's top-ranked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire appeared in both trade paper and mass market. Since USA attributes its ranking to only one edition, it began switching between the two. That was no problem when it switched for an entire month, but when it split during a month, then both editions fell in their consolidated ranking.

Then came the explosion of top-ranked e-books on USA after Christmas 2010. Using the edition-based Consolidated Ranking, almost all of the top-ranked editions the first part of the month would have lost their positions. So, in January 2011 we converted our analysis to a title-based model. With this approach, each edition is still restricted to a top ranking of 100, but the rating for a title is the sum of all its editions on the lists during the report period. In its reports for Febraury 6, 2011 sales (in print February 20), New York Times introduced two 35-item e-book lists—which were easily accommodated into the new structure.

The Problem with Children—Children's books are not covered evenly on the weekly lists. USA is the only list that includes them equally in the mix of all titles. NYT has a mix of children's and youth titles, but complicated things when it created its Children's Series list, which does not identify individual titles. And PW does not include them at all on its weekly lists (there is a monthly listing, but we have not included that in the database). While titles are disadvantaged in the consolidated rankings, it is still possible for authors and publishers to do well, as was the case when multiple titles of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series dominated the upper ranks of USA and the top spot on NYT Children's Series list for several months. In addition, we are able to run focused reports that can isolate children's titles on NYT and/or USA.

Think about it…

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

Carl Sagan

 

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