Received this link from Chris G. with a request for any thoughts I might have on what makes a bestselling book. Coincidentally, this weekend I also happened to read a column by Stephen King in an issue of Entertainment Weekly exploring the same issue.
And it also makes a nice follow-up to my last FFL on the Harry Potter release, especially in relation to the stat from the article I linked to that 70% of fiction book sales were accounted for by just five authors. (I mean, I knew it was bad but I didn't realise it was that bad!)
Who are the magic five by the way? The article doesn't say but I'd guess King, Steele, Grisham, Clancy and uhm, Rowling? Wikipedia disagrees but is looking at all-time and all-world while I think the article is referring to modern American bestsellers.
Then there's that whole crew of authors who seem to pump out new books on a monthly basis – Barbara Taylor Bradford, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, etc. that might not make up the top five but are probably a hefty chunk of the other 30%.
Anyhow, here are some random thoughts on what makes a bestselling book:
– the article from Chris has it right. No publisher knows what makes a bestseller, just as no movie studio can guarantee a blockbuster and no record company can guarantee a #1 album. There are things each can do to increase their chances of hitting the goal (engaging covers and media buzz for books, star actors and lots of explosions for movies, placement on hit TV shows and high-profile producers for records) but the pop culture landscape is littered with failed attempts, even using these techniques.
– a Canadian bestseller is commonly accepted to be 5000 copies (I think this applies for both fiction and non-fiction) but up until the last couple years, there is no standard way to measure sales like SoundScan for records. That's when the publishing and bookselling industry in Canada came together to support an initiative called BookNet which track book sales. It was just gearing up for launch in 2005 right before I went to library school and the service now appears to be active and working, even providing the Globe & Mail and Quill & Quire with their bestseller lists. (Former co-worker Jill, you out there? Anything else to add?)
– still with “bestseller” lists…I think the fine print for those who don't yet use BookNet data, such as the one in MacLean's even say “compiled by…” which basically means that the reporter has a few bookstores across Canada that provide estimates of their bestselling titles to him and he uses a bit of a math, a dash of intuition and probably a pinch of bias to prepare this impressionistic list.
– On a more literal level, what makes an individual book a bestseller? Again, no idea. It really is a swirl of all kinds of things – a great cover, a great “hook”, media buzz, word-of-mouth (especially in the age of the Internet with recommendation services such as Amazon and LibraryThing among others.) Sometimes authors just hit the timing right with a particular topic or issue they're covering.
So anyhow, I don't think there's any answers there but that's some random thoughts as I said.
If you're really interested in the topic, you should note that the 2007 CLA conference in Vancouver is on the topic of “Libraries and Publishing 3.0 – Connecting Authors to Readers in the Digital Age“. This gets right to the core of what libraries do so if you have any interest in the topic at all, I'd invite you to consider coming out to the left coast for the conference next spring!
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