We Wonder Who The Lists Are Trying To Impress

October 27th, 2004 · 5 Comments
by Booksquare

One of our secret vices in life is lists. We adore logical groupings of information. Give us a countdown and we get very excited. We have done things we don’t want to admit to in attempts to find out what is at Number One.

Just as the Top Forty is a bit of a myth (this, by the way, explains how so many people knew about U2 before Rick Dees), so are New York Times bestsellers. Though the exact methodology for determining the list is a supposedly closely guarded secret, one can be assured the chart toppers aren’t based on gross or net sales:

To report sales to the Times, booksellers use a form provided by Times editors. The form lists titles the editors think are likely to sell well. Although there is space below for writing in additional titles, this practice has been controversial.

Though bestseller lists are all essentially popularity contests, this practice (which is apparently not unique to the NYT) is akin to choosing the homecoming queen from just the cheerleading squad. Members of the volleyball team shouldn’t even bother to apply. We think this is where the Extended Bestseller list comes into play — after all, at some point, you must acknowledge the fact that some books really are bestsellers. Especially when numbers like this come into play:

So how many books do you actually need to sell to make it onto, say, the Times list? There is no defined threshold, but according to the Stanford study, one book made the hardcover fiction list selling only 2,108 copies a week; more typically, the median weekly sales figure in the study was 18,717. And most books can’t keep even these modest sale rates up for long: Sales generally peak during a book’s second week on the list and then steadily decline. Over a period of six months, the median best seller in the Stanford study averaged weekly sales of just over 3,600 copies.

Wow, we thought, wow. Then we did some research. After carefully approaching a multi-published author (dark alley, sunglasses, trench coats) and guaranteeing her complete anonymity, we discovered something scary: her first book, released in the final two weeks of the accounting period (publishing still clings to the quaint semi-annual statement process), had net sales of over 15,000 units. Imagine what a full month would have revealed. Ultimate sales were close to 100,000 copies [correction: estimated print run was 100k; actual sales were closer to 81,000]. Net. Anonymous Author was a bestseller.

Except, right, romance novels don’t count. Despite selling sufficient books to become at least a homecoming princess, she wasn’t even invited to the dance. We appreciate that sometimes bestseller lists function as de facto publisher marketing arms — our cynicism remains strong and pure: there is art and there is business — but when we hear that readership for major newspaper book review sections is declining, we have to wonder if a little reality is such a bad thing. Even if you exclude popular fiction (we’ll set aside the irony for the time being), is pre-selecting a list of what you (ivory tower editor) think will is “likely to sell well” doing anybody any good? If your list has no basis in reality, does that make it less credible?

After all, aren’t bestseller lists somewhat based the presumption that the public waits for fiction releases like they do movies? We’ve said before this doesn’t seem to be the case (even as we’ve sometimes succumbed to hype — we are only human). The books that generate feverish crowds must surely be the books that make NYT editors grind their teeth. Fiction is often a quiet pursuit. Why not let the bookstores in the reporting sample try something fun and unique: reporting their true bestsellers? Might make for an interesting social experiment.

File Under: Square Pegs

5 responses so far ↓

  • bookdwarf // Oct 28, 2004 at 9:05 am

    One of the things I’ve learned working in the buying office here is how the bestseller lists are mostly crap. The NYT uses an antiquated system first of all. Bookscan you can at least send through the computer. The NYT you have to write in all the books (because we don’t even carry half the stuff they list) and then fax it to them. Book markets differ per city I know. What sells big in my store might not work in other cities. The lists don’t mean much anymore.

  • booksquare // Oct 28, 2004 at 6:12 pm

    Okay, now I have the mental image of booksellers writing really small to fit all their bestsellers on a tiny little form.

    I am most amused by the Los Angeles Times list because it seems far more populist than the review section. It’s like we’re talking about two different cities in a way: one reading and buying books, the other cranky because it’s not the New York Times.

    So cool to hear from someone who actually participates in the process…not that I don’t love making stuff up, but reality is a great thing (in small doses!).

  • bookdwarf // Oct 29, 2004 at 12:04 pm

    Boy do I have dirt! Not really. But I can tell you precisely how we subit to all these lists. The NYT list is the worst of the lot really, not just because of the annoying way they make you do it, but because it seems pointless since their ‘picks’ rarely match our bestsellers. Any other bookstore questions, let me know.

  • bookdwarf // Oct 29, 2004 at 12:05 pm

    Boy do I have dirt! Not really. But I can tell you precisely how we subit to all these lists. The NYT list is the worst of the lot really, not just because of the annoying way they make you do it, but because it seems pointless since their ‘picks’ rarely match our bestsellers. Any other bookstore questions, let me know.

  • bookdwarf // Oct 29, 2004 at 12:05 pm

    Argh, sorry, my computer freaked out!