WHAT MAKES A BOOK A BEST SELLER
During 2020, I comforted myself by retreating into the world of books. I wrapped myself in words. I read 70 books, recording them in individual summaries on Goodreads. As a reader, I open myself to all kinds of books so I read romance, historical fiction, bestselling fiction and nonfiction. I read books on science and history, memoir and a few mysteries, some poetry.
The books led me out of fear and beyond the enforced solitude of COVID 19. Each morning I also spent an hour in meditation, and spiritual contemplation. I lost all the ways I’d used to exercise so devised my own yoga routine and took walks. I focused on gratitude and kept a list of people I called frequently who were sick or alone.
The question of what makes a book a bestseller has haunted me for years. I first became fascinated with “bestsellers” in high school and begged my journalism teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth Rowden to allow me to use that topic for a semester project. She agreed. (Mrs. Rowden also selected me to work on The Monitor, the high school newspaper for two years as news editor.) In 1966-7, the year of my project, there were not so many “bestseller lists.” I probably found the books I read in a magazine like Time or Newsweek. I don’t remember a separation between fiction and nonfiction either.
What I DO remember is realizing that I would not have read most of the books without the project and I learned from each of them.
About five years ago, I returned to a study of the bestselling books, using The Seattle Times and The Sunday New York Times as primary sources. Finding these was easy at first, since both papers were available at a nearby gas station on Sunday mornings when we were at Union. When on Orcas Island, we can simply drive into the village of Eastsound to Darvill’s Bookstore where they offer plenty of copies of The New York Times if we show up before noon. We can find The Seattle Times at the Island Market or Ray’s pharmacy (after 10 a.m.).
Since we travel back and forth between these two places, a subscription doesn’t work for me, nor does a digital copy, as I prefer to hold the real newspaper in my hands.
Then things changed—a new owner took over the gas station in Union and no longer carried The New York Times. Rich took on the challenge of finding the papers on Sunday, leaving by 8 a.m. or earlier to visit grocery stores in nearby towns. For a while Starbucks carried both papers. Then they ceased carrying all newspapers. During this year of COVID 19 we made Sundays our grocery shopping time. We drove into the nearby town of BelFair where Rich let me off at the grocery. If the store had the papers, Rich returned to the car while I shopped. If not, he drove to another grocery and usually found them there but not always. Then he began going alone to a closer small town where their grocery store usually carried both papers. Now that sunrise is late, he has started calling ahead and one of the stores will hold copies of both papers for him.
The question about what makes a bestselling book came up in a memoir class I taught in 2019, so I began to do some research. Last January, I prepared a presentation of bestselling books for our Mother/Daughter Book Club. We’d visited my older daughter in Portland that Thanksgiving (2019), toured Pittock Mansion, originally built by the owner of The Portland Oregonian in the 1800s. In the kitchen we found the newest copy of The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, a book I received as a wedding gift when married to my first husband in the 1960s. I learned that book had been on the list of bestselling books for many years—it was published in 1931.
Most authors dream of having their book hit a bestseller list but how to get there? Some authors do buy their way onto lists like Donald Trump, Jr., whose family and friends bought enough books to put him on a bestseller list.
I began to learn that there are many lists and the lists are ever-changing. This year I found Amazon and Goodreads and Google had lists in addition to The New York Times and The Seattle Times, Publisher’s Weekly, USA Today, The Washington Post and Barnes and Noble. All the lists are different.
Google claims most new books sell about 250 copies and no more than 2,000 copies in their lifetime. They determined then that selling more than this would technically make your book a bestseller. Wikipedia claims the most popular books are in the categories of thriller, mystery, memoir and those released at Christmas.
Publishers base their selections on sales in national and independent bookstores. That includes industry sales figures for attendance, requests, broadcast plays and unit sales. Some publishers include sales on Amazon. Others don’t include Amazon. Books of superior excellence tend to become bestsellers over time such as Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott.
One clever author and marketer of books, Brent Underwood claims the “bestseller” category is one of the biggest lies in publishing. He set out to prove his point by taking a photo of his foot, designing the photo as a book cover, then taking steps to make this book a “bestseller.” He succeeded. His company has launched thirty books on The New York Times bestseller lists, several placing at Number One.
Books.com runs a data base that tabulates book sales but does not include Amazon’s book sales. Most books on these lists must be published by a “legitimate” publisher, cannot be self-published, must outsell all other books out there, even if you are paying for it. Amazon has its own bestseller rankings which will appear below the title. A #1 banner indicates first place and if the book holds that spot for months, most consider that impressive.
I reviewed a handful of bestseller lists to come up with the 2020 Bestseller list below. I also included a list of bestselling books I read in 2020. Then I’ve included a list of some of the all-time bestselling books. I marked those I’ve read with an asterisk.
2020 BEST SELLERS
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Protagonist travels through a library swapping one life for another. Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Migrations: A Novel by Charlotte McConoghy (A story of tracking terns in final migration to Antarctica)
A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice and Freedom by Brittany K. Barnett Author describes her career as a young lawyer defending black lives in the US legal system.
Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind by Yuval Nook Harari, graphic history. 250 pages of full-color graphic adaptations, author’s original work.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett. Goodreads pick for historical fiction and Amazon best book of the year.
The Revisioners: A Novel by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. 2020 NAACP Image Award winner. The book focuses on a slave and her descendent, bonds of mothers and children.
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
Anxious People by Fredrick Backman
*American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
*Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump
BOOKS I READ THIS YEAR FROM THE BESTSELLER LISTS
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Turn Around Time: A Walking Poem for the Pacific Northwest by David Guterson
The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes (historical fiction)
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Court of Thorns and Roses – science fiction/fantasy series by Sarah Maas
NOTE: This entire project was elusive! During the week I pulled the BLOG together, the Number One bestselling book changed three times! On Sunday, January 17, many lists featured former President Barack Obama’s new book, A Promised Land. Then the spot was filled a few days later by writer Julia Quinn’s book The Duke and I, fueled by the Netflix series “Bridgerton.” After the Inauguration of President Joseph R. Biden, poet Amanda Gorman took first place due to the poem she read at the ceremony titled “The Hill We Climb.” She is the author of The One for Whom Food is Not Enough, Penmanship Books, 2015. Gorman is U.S. youth poet laureate.
ALL TIME BEST SELLERS (asterisk means I’ve read the book)
*The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein
*A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
*The DaVinci Code, *Angels and Demons, *The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
*Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
*The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Don Quixote by Miguel des Cervantes
*The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
*The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Ayesha by H. Rider Haggard
*To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xuequin
Quotations from Chairman Mao
The Quran
Lolita by Vladimer Nabokov
*War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
*1984 by George Orwell
*Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
*One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
*The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
*Works of Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit
*The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
Guinness Worlds Records, 2020
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
*Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
*Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
*The Common Sense Bond by Benjamin Spock (baby and child care)
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James
**Heidi by Johanna Spyri
*The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Wallace
*Valley of the Dolls bv Jacqueline Susann
**Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
**The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
**Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
**The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
**The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908)
NOTE: As I said earlier, this entire bestselling books project was elusive in a digital era where changes are continual. There are even three ways to spell “best seller” “bestseller” and “best-seller.”
In another BLOG, I’ll explain what I look for, as a writer, in a bestselling book, and how I bring poems together using sparks of thought.
QUESTION: Were your favorite books listed? What is your favorite book of 2020? Of all time? My favorite book for 2020 was Giver of Stars by Jo Jo Moyes, and my all-time favorite is Heidi by Johanna Spyri.
Snow comes to The Olympic Mountains