Calif. Indies Offer Own Bestseller List
Roxane Farmanfarmaian -- 6/22/98
"Our bestseller list is made up of books people are willing to pay full price for," said Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. "All the other lists in the country are partially fueled by publishers' advertising."The NCIBA list is the first in the country to reflect the selling patterns of independents exclusively, and it's already showing some surprising results. It first appeared last January, when many Northern California independent booksellers decided to stop reporting to the New York Times after it hot-linked Barnes &Noble to its online book review page. It tracks not only 20 fiction and nonfiction hardback titles, but 20 fiction and nonfiction trade paper titles as well (plus five mass market bestsellers). One of the most interesting developments is the consistent appearance of at least one, and sometimes two, backlist titles on the trade paper list every single week: books such as Snow Falling on Cedars, At Home in Mitford (which reappeared before Out to Canaan) and Einstein's Dreams. Little Altars Everywhere resurfaced. "It proves that clients at independents don't just buy what's new. Booksellers are handselling these," said Landon. Titles such as Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking showed up on the list well before making the national lists, while Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha have had staying power for months at the top, knocking out such titles as John Grisham's The Street Lawyer within a couple of weeks. What d s not appear on the list at all: hardcover titles by Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins, which the independents rarely stock since they can't compete with the discounts available at the chains. Back To News---> |
