Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
They're not supposed to be gaming the list.
The whole idea is to offer a straight report of paid sales for the week.
If they are living up to that there is little reason to expect KDP titles to dominate because readers open to Indie reads tend to spread their spending around instead of clustering on new releases.
Also, if by "free title" you're referring to the Kindle First titles, those aren't KDP books but rather APub offerings. Traditionally published books from the Amazon subsidiary. Different kettle.
The may 14 mix was hardly dominated by KDP. Or even Amazon:
20 Most sold
Big Pub 10, Amazon 6, Small Pub 2, Indie 2.
Even on the most read side, if you count Rowling as Indie, you only get:
20 most read:
Big Pub 11, Amazon 4, Small Pub 0, Indie 5.
If the list skews even slightly towards anything it is towards backlist, which is probably going to really annoy the BPHs because they prefer to promote fresh releases during the launch window and forget about them afterwards. Spotlighting a two year old biography doesn't serve their interests regardless of who published it.
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You might be surprised. While most books do peak during the initial release, there have been quite a few books that built up a readership. Some publishers/editors even plan for it with certain types of books, such as biographies. For example, John Adams, by David McCullough was initial published in 2001. It saw a bump when McCullough won a Pulitzer in 2002, then saw another big bump when the mini-series came out in 2008. Being on a major best seller list servers the BPH interest, regardless of how long it takes. Books that stay in print and continue to have good sells numbers year after year are very much in the BPH interest. That's money in the bank for them.
From a BPH point of view, all sales are good.