Making the Bestseller List

The Making of American Bestsellers

Ambivalence surrounds the bestseller list. Is it a tool to measure sales or to promote them? That question plagues booksellers, academics, authors, and publishers alike. One thing is sure: everyone would like to see his book included. These rankings make or break novels and authors, and are perceived as a barometer of American cultural life. An innovation of the book trade, the bestseller list continues to be used by the industry to market books. To the dismay of cultural critics, the lists wield enormous power. Whether as booksellers, authors, publishers, or readers, we all play a part in the creation and continuing importance of the bestseller list.

How is the Bestseller List Compiled?

Bestseller lists influence book sales and mean big business. It is therefore no surprise that much secrecy surrounds the actual compilation in an effort to keep the lists accurate. Publishers Weekly and the New York Times determine their weekly lists by polling bookstores, recording the sales of hardbound books. The results are combined annually in Publishers Weekly to produce a ranking of the top ten bestselling works of popular fiction. These lists exclude the novels printed by book clubs, the number of paperback sales, and the count of print runs. To discover books that have sold the greatest number overall, readers must turn to books such as Hackett's 80 Years of Best Sellers with lists which combine hardbound and paperback sales to determine rankings.

The First Bestseller Lists

"Sales of Books During the Month." The Bookman: A Literary Journal 1.1 (1895): 64-65.
The Bookman published the first list of bestselling books in 1895.

"The Bestselling Books, Here and Elsewhere." The New York Times Book Review 9 Aug. 1942, section 6: 8. Facsimile.
The first weekly bestseller list appeared in the New York Times Book Review in 1942.

Important Events in the Making of Bestsellers: A Chronology

1891- The international copyright act is passed ending the pirating and cheap sales of British books in the U.S.

1895 - The book trade magazine The Bookman publishes lists of monthly regional sales of popular books.

1913 - Publishers Weekly begins to feature "New Record of Best Sellers," based on actual sales reports from booksellers from cities in each region of the country.

1926 - The Book-of-the-Month Club is founded.

1939 - The paperback imprint Pocket Books is founded, bringing inexpensive books to the mass market.

1942 - A list of bestsellers begins to appear weekly in the New York Times Book Review.

1970s and 80s- Large publishing and media conglomerates are formed. They focus on profitable authors who sign multiple-book deals. Bestsellers become media packages. Time-Warner and CBS now have extensive publishing holdings.Bookstore chains, such as B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, appear in shopping malls, marketing books on a massive scale. The superstores of Barnes and Noble represent the most recent incarnation of the consolidation of bookstores. Today, these chains influence the publishing industry.

Charting Trends in the Bestseller List: How Have Our Reading Habits Changed over Time?

1913

Today we remember few of the bestsellers from 1913, but we do recognize the types of fiction. Romantic and historical novels dominate, and in the popularity of Pollyanna, we see an early example of a wildly successful series of children's books, not unlike the Harry Potter series. Readers in this era especially favored the regional fiction of Gene Stratton-Porter and the novels by the American writer Winston Churchill. Although on the cusp of World War I, none of these books expresses any sense of the impending war in Europe.

Top Ten Fiction Bestsellers of 1913

The Inside of the Cup
Winston Churchill
V.V.'s Eyes
Henry Sydnor Harrison
Laddie
Gene Stratton-Porter
The Judgment House
Sir Gilbert Parker
Heart of the Hills
John Fox, Jr.
The Amateur Gentleman
Jeffrey Farnol
The Woman Thou Gavest Me
Hall Caine
Pollyanna
Eleanor H. Porter
The Valiants of Virginia
Hallie Erminie Rives
T. Tembarom
Frances Hodgson Burnett

1943

Out of the ten books on this list, three contain religious themes. In addition, we see irreverent but uplifting novels by John P. Marquand and William Saroyan. The few titles that remain familiar to us have survived primarily because of a well-known movie version. In this time, war books appeared on a separate list.

Top Ten Fiction Bestsellers of 1943

The Robe
Lloyd C. Douglas
The Valley of Decision
Marcia Davenport
So Little Time
John P. Marquand
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
The Human Comedy
William Saroyan
Mrs. Parkington
Louis Bromfield
The Apostle
Sholem Asch
Hungry Hill
Daphne du Maurier
The Forest and the Fort
Hervey Allen
The Song of Bernadette
Franz Werfel

1973

In contrast to 1913, this list includes few women writers, but we do start recognizing authors' names. For example, the blockbuster Jonathan Livingston Seagull appeared on the annual bestseller list for two years. Several of the titles stand out for their literary merit, and we encounter the well-known authors Frederick Forsyth, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, and Graham Greene. Robert Ludlum first appeared on this 1973 list. His thrillers continued to make the lists until his death in 2001.

Top Ten Fiction Bestsellers of 1973

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
Once Is Not Enough
Jacqueline Susann
Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut
The Odessa File
Frederick Forsyth
Burr
Gore Vidal
The Hollow Hills
Mary Stewart
Evening in Byzantium
Irwin Shaw
The Matlock Paper
Robert Ludlum
The Billion Dollar Sure Thing
Paul E. Erdman
The Honorary Consul
Graham Greene

Book Clubs

To solve the problem of how to market and distribute enough books to attain economies of scale in the publishing business, Harry Scherman developed The Book-of-the-Month Club as a merchandizing scheme in 1926. The original prospectus on display appealed to readers who felt out of the loop in remote areas and to those who were too busy to keep track of the books they wanted to read. Addressing potential subscribers, Scherman asked, "Why is it that so many wideawake people, who know the joys of this fine camaraderie that exists among readers of new books, still neglect time and again to 'keep up' with the best that is published?" Scherman promised to help readers redress this void by offering the expertise of well-known critics and writers to help choose "the best" books available. His selection committee consisted of Henry Seidel Canby, Heywood Broun, Dorothy Canfield, Christopher Morley, and William Allen White, who together would make the book-of-the-month selection for subscribers. Ultimately, for readers seeking expert guidance on what to read, The Book-of-the-Month Club became the way "to keep abreast of the best books of the day." Although book club purchases were not included in bestseller annual lists, Scherman's innovation ensured that a selected work attained bestseller status.

Canby, Henry Seidel, et al. The Book-of-the-Month Club. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1926.

From the Harry Scherman Papers. On loan from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

A continuation of Scherman's concept, though not motivated by profit, Oprah's Book Club advises readers on what to read. However, unlike earlier clubs, the power of Oprah's television presence and the sheer number of her viewers result in millions of additional sales, as seen when Oprah recommended Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible on June 23, 2000. By this point in time, when Oprah chooses a book, the publisher immediately rushes an extra million copies into production. As a result, Oprah Winfrey has become one of the most influential people in the book industry. With a word, she catapults a book onto the bestseller list.

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999. .

Gift of Lee and Virginia Clendenning

Word-of-Mouth Bestsellers

The Broken Moon Press, a small publisher in Seattle, published Rebecca Wells' first book, Little Altars Everywhere. Although having limited publicity, the book sold so well that HarperCollins acquired her next book, Divine Secrets.

Wells, Rebecca. Little Altars Everywhere. Seattle: Broken Moon, 1992.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Purchased with the Robert Coleman Taylor Fund.

Wells, Rebecca. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. New York: HarperCollins, 1996 .
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Purchased with the Robert Coleman Taylor Fund.

Charles Frazier grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, where he set his first novel. It became a critical and commercial success by the word-of-mouth recommendation of its readers, who were drawn to the authenticity of its place and characters. Inspired by Frazier's investigation into his great-great-uncle's journey home from the Civil War, Cold Mountain won the National Book Award in 1997.

Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1997.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Purchased with the Robert Coleman Taylor Fund.

The First Bestselling African-American Writer

Frank Yerby wrote over thirty books with the purpose of entertaining the reading public. The Foxes of Harrow proved a bestseller in 1946, and The Vixens reached the 1947 list.

Yerby, Frank. The Foxes of Harrow. New York: Dial, 1946.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Rives, Hallie Erminie. The Valiants of Virginia. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1912.

Gift of the University League.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. T. Tembarom. New York: Century, 1913.

From the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.

Stratton-Porter, Gene. Laddie: A True Blue Story. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1913.

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. F. D. Yates.

Caine, Hall. The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill. London: William Heinemann, 1913.

Harrison, Henry Sydnor. V. V.'s Eyes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Churchill, Winston. The Inside of the Cup. New York: Macmillan, 1913.

From the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.

Marquand, John P. So Little Time. Boston: Little, Brown, 1943.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Davenport, Marcia. The Valley of Decision. New York: Scribner's, 1942.

From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers. Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Allen, Hervey. The Forest and the Fort. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1943.

From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers. Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Bromfield, Louis. Mrs. Parkington. New York: Harper, 1943.
From the Taylor Collection of American Bestsellers.

Gift of Mrs. R. C. Taylor.

Saroyan, William. The Human Comedy. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943.

From the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature.

Asch, Sholem. The Apostle. Trans. Maurice Samuel. New York: Putnam, 1943.

Gift of Warren and Lydia Chappell.

Forsyth, Frederick. The Odessa File. Advance Reading Copy. New York: Viking, 1972.

Gift of Jerry Showalter.

Greene, Graham. The Honorary Consul. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.

Purchased with the Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund.

Vidal, Gore. Burr. New York: Random, 1973.

Purchased with the American Literature Fund.

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. Breakfast of Champions: or, Goodbye Blue Monday! [New York]: Delacorte Press, Seymour Lawrence, 1973.

Purchased with the Robert and Virginia Tunstall Trust Fund.