Analyzing bestsellers

[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.

[Sydney's Mom]

Very interesting. Our attention spans have shortened. In addition, it is much easier to buy a book these days-you can go to Walmart and get a book along with your groceries. What would be interesting would be an analysis of the types of books that make up the bestseller lists. Drek like 50 shades aside, I think I remember Payton Place having more complex sentence structure than I see today. Or it could be that I am just smarter than I was then, and it doesn't seem complex to me now.

[fjtorres]

No, it's not you.
Bestsellers *are* purposefully written for greater accessibility.
As he points out, in the old days bestseller-dom was the result of writing a book that happened to please people. It was not a specific goal if the writer as it is with Patterson and many of today's brand name authors, who craft their books to formula, aiming at very broad appeal.

Like this:
http://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/0...ful-prose.html

A typical Patterson chapter runs 640 words or so.
I've written longer sentences myself.

[taosaur]

The only bestseller I've read recently was not remotely crafted to be a bestseller: The Martian, by Andy Weir, which the author originally published in serial form on his personal website, as his personal space nerd what-if exercise.

Granted, there are plenty of people doing shtick, but the glass isn't necessarily half empty.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by taosaur

The only bestseller I've read recently was not remotely crafted to be a bestseller: The Martian, by Andy Weir, which the author originally published in serial form on his personal website, as his personal space nerd what-if exercise.

Granted, there are plenty of people doing shtick, but the glass isn't necessarily half empty.

I didn't say all bestsellers are aiming at the list from day one. But rather *many* of them.
There are still some who regularly hit just by doing what comes natural to them (Gaiman, for one) or who just do it the old-fashioned way (50 Shades, Hunger games, Potter). For the most part, the big lottery winners tend to be "accidental" successes. Nobody's figured out *that* formula.

[pwalker8]

Another thing to keep in mind is that the NYT bestseller list is manipulated so more books appear on the list. When the Harry Potter books stayed on the list for too long, the NYT changed the rules so Harry Potter was in a different list and they could start churning again. What he is analyzing is the behavior of the list, not the behavior of books that sell a lot.