News Article on the NYT Bestseller List

[Devor]

The Hustle, a daily tech-and-business focused newsletter, had their Sunday story on the NYT bestseller list.

Lots of interesting tidbits throughout, including a bit on their secret methodology and a discussion of who makes the list.

The murky math of the New York Times bestsellers list - The Hustle

How to land one of the spots on the list.

thehustle.co

 

[Ban]

Interesting article, though I don't like how they present the literary field as somehow being dependent on the prestige of the New York Times. The NYT has some degree of international (Anglophone) reach, but by no means are all books published worldwide vying to get on their list, or even eligible or interested for that matter. I suppose this serves to make the list sound more "exclusive", but it's a little silly for them to cite a three million books published annually figure, when the majority of those publications aren't aimed at a NYT clientele.

Major tangent of course, but that's what I like about Mythic Scribes.

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm not sure if this is any surprise, given the way publishing works. After all, getting picked up for publication is as much about what agents and commissioning editors think is trending as it is about quality. And once they've picked what they think will be the next thing then they're going to want to push it a bit. Given how relatively small the publishing world is it is almost inevitable that those editors who work for organisations like the NYT will know and share many of the same values and ideas as the publishers' editors, which makes it easier to agree on what is likely to be on the bestseller list. That's especially true if the NYT/book readers live in the same sorts of areas as those editors...

 

[Finchbearer]

We have the Sunday Times Bestseller list here in the UK, and there are some other lists that will help books sell that are relatively independent of American standards or tastes, even though we share a similar language, these are different markets we’re talking about. And I imagine that any book is only as good as the PR agent, along with what’s trending.

 

[Finchbearer]

Nice to hear that women have the edge though…you know, seeing as we weren’t allowed to read or write for centuries. Seems like we have something important to say now. There’s an irony to it all.

 

[Devor]

...it's a little silly for them to cite a three million books published annually figure, when the majority of those publications aren't aimed at a NYT clientele.

Google is giving me conflicting information on this, but this page seems to have the most data. I don't stand by anything.

Number Of Books Published Per Year – WordsRated

wordsrated.com

This place claims that 4 millions books are written annually, but also that 3.4 million ISBNs are registered in a year in the US. It also suggests that 200,000 books in a year were in English, or 21%. I see these same numbers across multiple sites. The data is all coming from different sources and different years. It makes it difficult to get a handle on the market because it keeps changing.

I wonder if books that are published abroad often go through publishers that are subsidiaries of US companies and somehow get routed through the US data?

And the same book can have multiple copies through translations. I'd kill for an hour with the data set on this stuff.

Given how relatively small the publishing world is it is almost inevitable that those editors who work for organisations like the NYT will know and share many of the same values and ideas as the publishers' editors, which makes it easier to agree on what is likely to be on the bestseller list. That's especially true if the NYT/book readers live in the same sorts of areas as those editors...

Yeah, it's a well known struggle between mass market appeal, self-fulfilling expectations, quality perception, and representation. The publishers think they know the mass audience, and I think they do - with lots of blindspots.