Musings - How do Bestseller Lists Work?

You see the stickers claiming "bestseller" on books all the time, yet often that hasn't been an indication of a book I found enjoyable at all.  I thought this might be interesting to delve into, but from my research I came across some surpising information.  

I didn't do an exhaustive study, so if you have additional information, please leave a comment.  The name "bestsellers list" can be a bit deceptive depending upon the list.  So what exactly do best seller lists measure?  It depends on the list.

New York Times Bestseller

Although this one may have the most name recognition, it isn't really a measure of what is a national bestseller.  It can create a bestseller because appearing on the list can increase book sales by 57% for a debut author and 13%-14% average for established authors, but it isn't a list of what book is selling best across the nation. Why, you ask?  Because they only gather data from a select few bookstores and online retailers (ones they consider important-and not Amazon, Target, or Walmart that's for sure).  The brick-and-mortar independant bookstores are given more weight in their sales and not many if any discount stores.

William Blatty, the noted author of the wildly popular book, The Exorcist--you might have heard of it, sued the NY Times because no matter how many copies of The Exorcist sold they weren't showing it on their list.  Now he had sold far and away enough to have appeared on the list, but nope.  He stated that their decision cost him exposure which equals sales and therefore money.

In the trial the NY Times countered with saying their list was an "editorial product".  In other words its up to their opinion, or judgement, of what's worthy to be on their list.  It was more along the lines of a popularity contest than actually based on sales numbers. Rather surprising, huh?

The NY Times administration has even stated that those independant bookstores they do get data from somehow have more discerning readers and that's why they are so restrictive in who they poll.  It sounds to me it is rather elitist.  If you can't afford hardback or such and get ebooks, depending upon where you purchase it, it may not get counted at all in their listing, or will be weighted as not as important of data if they even like that book at all.  Also, purchases made by libraries don't count, either.

Why, oh why is this such a prestigious "bestseller" list when it is all their opinion??

USA Today Bestseller 

Gets their data from Nielsen BookScan and covers print and ebook sales, but not audio.  At one point they just reported whatever was selling, whether that was a soduku book or maps (remember those), but now they "curate" the listing and remove extraneous things.   

So in many ways this list is more indicative of what we expect in a bestseller list.  But it doesn't provide the full picture, only 75% to 85% of book sales are covered and only counts certain retail sales.  It doesn't count sales to libraries which have their fingers on the pulse of what's popular in books for their communities, plus this doesn't necesarily count non-bookstore sales like gift shops and specialty shops, and doesn't include independant books stores that have older sales software that doesn't report to Nielsen automatically.  Still, compared to the other lists, this is the closest we are likely to get a list of the actual top selling print and ebooks.

Publisher's Weekly Bestseller

This is the publishing industry's standard to track even competitor publishing company's sales, so you would expect it to be very accurate.  You would be wrong.  They use Neilson BookScan as well so it is very similar to the USA Today list except it doesn't include ebooks (say what!).  That's correct.  But ebooks account for roughly 18% of all books sales so that is a significant ding and makes this list considerably less an indication of a bestseller. 

IndieBound Bestseller List

The IndieBound list is compiled by the American Booksellers Association (ABA) which is data from only 550 independent bookstores.  It isn't from book sales.  It looks at what the number one selling books are from each bookstore, no matter the store's size or if it was one hundred sales or only ten sold.  It would look like: 100 stores had ABC as top seller, 125 stores had XYZ so they extrapolate MNOP is the best seller and so on. 

What this can easily reflect is what those sales people are recommending to their customers rather than a true reflection of a book's actual appeal or buzz, particularly with the small amount of bookstores providing the data and not based on the number of books by title sold.  This easily misrepresents because the book they don't think is a bestseller so they don't even list it could be a solid and consistent seller across all the stores and be #1 by number of books sold.  But they don't do their list that way.

Wallstreet Journal Bestseller 

This is prestigious for business books, not as recognized for all other categories such as adult and juvenile titles.  But their bestseller list is what we expect--based on book sales.  

WSJ gets data from Nielsen BookScan who gathers point-of-sale book data from more than 16,000 locations across the U.S.

Print-book data providers include all major booksellers, web retailers, Walmart, and food stores. E-book data providers include all major e-book retailers (except Apple). Free e-books and those sold for less than 99 cents are not included.  The combined lists track sales by title across all print and e-book formats; except audiobooks.  This along with USA Today list are closer to a realistic list of the bestselling books understanding it isn't exhaustive in the data gathered.

There you have it, some lists are more what you expect and others fall significant short.  Was any of this surprising to you like it was to me?  Any thoughts, let me know in the comments.