Dear Reader,
If you like reading, chances are you will have come across books which state they are or their author has been a New York Times bestseller. It is intriguing that in the day and age where Amazon updates the sales number roughly every hour a legacy small sample NYT bestseller list still carries favour, and there are people willing to game the listing.
The NYT bestseller list has an important lesson for those of us who like to understand the choices we make, people make choices out of comfort than seeking new experiences, let me explain with a visualisation that my colleague Bhupesh made out of the 1931 - 2020 data from the NYT bestseller list.
Danielle Steel Books remained more weeks than any authors books in NYT best seller list. Clearly the last century favoured murder, mayhem, and mystery!
Oh, The Places You’Will Go! by Dr. Seuss released in 1990 remained more weeks than any other book on the bestsellers list till 2020 the year for which we have the full data. It is interesting that this book has managed to find itself in the middle of some of the most important copyright and fair use litigation as well.
The Da Vinci Code remained number 1 most of the weeks than any other book followed by Where The Crawdads Sing. In the graph below there is a comparison of The Da Vinci Code and Oh, The Places You’Will Go! on the basis of ranks and weeks.
NYT estimates that Tiktok made possible the sale of 20 million books in 2021, and the numbers till now are up another 50% or so. The book (in physical and digital sense) whose epitaph has been erroneously written continues to remain the greatest user of disruptive technology to use it for continuing to soar.
Danielle Steel has the most number of books in NYT best seller list followed by Stuart Woods, and followed at a considerable distance one might add.
What explains the perennial dominance of Danielle Steel? One of these days we will find out. Until then a few physicists got together to find out what makes a good bestseller.
In the year 2020, Delia Owens Books remained more weeks in NYT best seller list than any authors book. Where The Crawdads Sing remained more weeks than any other book followed by American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Also, The Crawdads Sing remained rank 1 most weeks than any other book in 2020. Time to have the Tiktok effect in BS glossary!
So, how do you write a bestseller? Well turns out the lab working on Complex Network Research has a flowchart on writing a bestseller and it comes from analysing the NYT bestsellers from 2008 to 2016. Do you want to perhaps analyse the data too, you can download it here.
An interesting take away from the list is the sheer presence of repeat authors on the list. There is something to be said for people seeking the same authors to tell different stories. The other interesting take away from the list is well we are still reading, and the hours spent reading are going up. So if you have a story to tell, the flowchart can help you get to the list.