Best Selling Book Metrics

From Episode 008 with Tyler Wagner

  • New York Times Best Seller List
  • The Time List
    • You will have to sell at least 5,000 copies during any one-week period
    • The category and window of your release both significantly impact the number of copies required to hit the Times bestseller list
  • The Wall Street Journal
    • The WSJ list is based on Nielsen Bookscan recording, which represents 75-80% of the actual market.
    • It usually takes about 3000 -4000 sales to hit the WSJ bestseller list.
  • USA Today
    • Based on Nielsen Bookscan recording
    • All books are put are together (no categories) and ranked by raw sales data
    • One list of high selling books
  • Amazon
    • Bestseller list is updated on an hourly basis
    • Focus all your marketing efforts on your release date
    • Average Day, it should take about 500 copies to make the top 100 or 2000 sales to hit Amazon Top 10