Breaking down a fiction bestseller list

Looking at data can give authors valuable insights into what works

One of the strange problems we often have, as published authors, is getting our hands on accurate sales figures - or any sales figures - even our own! In Australia, Nielsen Bookscan is the best way to glean figures, but you have to pay a lot to get an account, so most authors don’t have access to all the figures, and even this data isn’t entirely accurate as Bookscan only counts physical books sold in traditional bookstores/outlets. Publishers will divulge more information if we ask, but it’s not good form to ask too often when they’re busy with a lot of things - so unless we’re in the first few weeks of a publication cycle then we can easily end up unsure of numbers until we either pester our publishers or receive royalty statements.

Therefore, the information in this ‘Top 10 Australian Adult Fiction Titles (Year to Date)’, provided recently by Bookseller & Publisher, gives us all a valuable insight into the books selling the best so far this year - along with sales figures (from Bookscan). Let’s take some time and break it down, to see what we can learn, because there’s a lot more in here than we might think at first glance: