Bestsellers

For all of the claims that people aren't reading books anymore, political books are selling like Donald Trump merchandise at Mar-a-Lago, dominating nonfiction bestseller lists for the past few years.

In the summer of 2018, Putnam published an unusual debut novel by a retired wildlife biologist named Delia Owens. The book, which had an odd title and didn't fit neatly into any genre, hardly seemed destined to be a blockbuster, so Putnam printed about 28,000 copies.

It wasn't nearly enough.

Nearly three times as many Americans read a book of history in 2017 as watched the first episode of the final season of "Game of Thrones." The share of young adults who read poetry in that year more than doubled from five years earlier.  Read more

The average American reads 12 or 13 books a year, but with over 3 million books in print, the choices they face are staggering.

Despite the introduction of 100,000 new titles each year, only a tiny fraction of these attract a large enough readership to make The New York Times Best Seller list.  Read more

"I was told that it just came out at a really bad time, but that that was true across the board," says author Alana Massey. Back in 2015, her debut essay collection, All The Lives I Want, was sold for a solid six-figure deal to Grand Central Publishing, home to authors such as Melissa Broder, Candace Bushnell, and Nicholas Sparks.  Read more