[fjtorres]

Fun read, three part set:

http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/...sis-of-50.html

http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/...-part-two.html

http://martinhillortiz.blogspot.com/...art-three.html

I looked at fifty years of the books that dominated the New York Times Adult Fiction Bestseller List, starting in 1960 and continuing through 2009. My goal was to see what kind of book got on top and stayed there, and how this has changed over time.

To narrow down the massive number of titles, I focused on those which stayed on top for at least four weeks.

During the year 1960, only two novels held the number one spot: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury, carrying over from 1959 and Hawaii by James Michener which stayed on top for 49 weeks, spilling into 1961. They slugged it out, the top entry spot changing eleven times. Long stays on top of the list were common for the 1960s. Over the course of the decade, 31 novels took the number one spot for an average stay of 16.1 weeks.

During the year 2009, 37 different novels occupied the number one position, 31 of these for only one week. The average stay was 1.4 weeks. Over a remarkable period, one-week wonders climbed to the top spot for each of twenty consecutive weeks.

Advise and Consent and Hawaii came from a day when books were judged by their ability to blockade the cave's entrance to keep out saber-toothed tigers. Drury weighed in at 616 pages and 270,000 words, Michener at 937 pages and 460,000 words. During the 1960s the average novel* ran 463 pages and 172833 words. In the 1980s this ballooned to 554 pages and 208987 words. Of the 54 novels included in this analysis during the 1980s none were under 80,000 words.

During the 2000s, the length of the average novel had dropped to half as many words: 103,880. Of the 36 novels included in this analysis for this decade, 12 had fewer than 80,000 words.

James Patterson is a machine for writing bestsellers. I don’t fault him for that: he knows how to give people what they want. He writes short novels which are printed out to appear to be long books. From 2005 to 2008 he had these six entries which stayed at least four weeks in the number one position on the bestsellers list*.

Year, Title, Page count, Word count
2005 Honeymoon, 393 pages, 65572 words
2005 4th of July, 392 pages, 68000 words
2005 Lifeguard, 394 pages, 71634 words
2005-06 Mary, Mary, 392 pages, 72436 words
2006 Judge and Jury, 421 pages, 74288 words
2008 Double Cross, 2008, 389 pages, 70753 words
*He had 16 total number one books during this period.

These average out to be 397 pages and 70447 words, or 177.4 words per page.

Highly recommended.

Note that he stopped at 2009 because the 2010's brand of bestseller rarely meets the four week standard.