It seems that every book I've picked up in Asda recently, claims to be a bestseller - I know, I shouldn't be buying books with economy fishfingers and hair dye with a '07 sell by date. When I start reading said book, I am often disappointed and believe me my literary standards at very low.
I'd love to know where I can find out just how many copies a book has sold to date to see what makes it a bestseller or is that classified information? :)
3 comments:
I think it has to sell something like 100,000 copies to be classed as a bestseller. Or maybe it's 50,000. Sadly, my novel isn't one!
Kate? Rowan? You probably know better than me...
I think it has to appear on an official bestsellers list to be classed as a bestseller, The Times is the one I think the trade largely goes by, but Asda and the other supermarket also have their own. The numbers that need to be sold to make it on the list can vary depending on the time of year and the competition that's around. In a quite week you might not have to sell that many to make it to the top ten. In the middle of Richard and Judy season you'd need much more, about minimum of 50K copies I think. I my last two books have been number twelve and fourteen respectively in the Times Bestsellers, I'd love to make that top ten though one day! If you are really interested subscribe the The bookseller. I do, it tells you all the figures that all the books are selling every week!
Publishers can choose whatever standard they wish to term a book a 'bestseller'. If they say what that standard is (e.g., it was number one on the Ney York Times bestseller list for six weeks), you can judge. More often than not, they base it on internal standards. One of mine was touted as a bestseller by the publisher because it had outsold their other titles one week. These days, with daily sales figures available to publishers, such terms are largely meaningless. A real giveaway is when it appears on the cover of a first edition hardback (and I've seen it). That means the publisher has decided it is a bestseller, even before it has been printed.
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