Bestsellers '07

How much is too much? Last year, 561 books made a first landing on PW's weekly bestseller charts. That's 13.3% more than in 2006 and 33.5% more than in 2003—a huge jump in just five years. That's good news for authors, as many more of them get the opportunity to fulfill their bestseller dream. But there's the flip side—most of them fall off in just a week or two or three.

Even the most successful veterans are experiencing much shorter stays. Nicholas Sparks's debut title, 1996's The Notebook, stayed on the list for more than a year; 2007's Dear John was on for 11 weeks. John Grisham's The Firm had a 48-week run in 1991; The Innocent Man, 13. As noted in the longest-running chart (p. 31), this was the first time that no mass market bestseller had a 15-week run. While a record 212 titles hit the weekly mass market lists, more than half were on for less than one month, with a whopping 54 titles dropping after a single week. Hardcover fiction also lost chart traction. About 55% of the 176 novels that landed last year stayed on for less than a month, and 25 were on for just one week.

In nonfiction and trade paperback, the bestseller picture was a bit rosier. While about half of the nonfiction top sellers were on the 2007 charts for less than a month, 12 stayed on for 15 or more weeks, with an additional 11 books enjoying double-digit tenures. Contrast that with only two novels with staying power of 15 weeks or more and nine others with double-digit runs. In trade paperback, too, about 50% were on the charts for less than a month, but 17 titles were on the charts for 15 or more weeks and four others for 10 or more weeks. In mass market, only four books stayed on for 10 or more weeks.

It takes a lot of publishing dollars and muscle to get books onto the national charts, and that's the key reason conglomerates dominate the lists. In 2007, six houses—Random House, Penguin USA, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette and Holtzbrinck—controlled 87.5% of all the slots on the weekly hardcover lists and 83.3% of all paperback slots. Add three more publishers on the hardcover side (see chart, p. 29) and the figure is up to 92.3%; in paperback, four more publishers make the number 93%. This domination by just 10 publishing entities does not leave many bestseller opportunities for the hundreds of other publishers.

Last year, 68 new titles made it to the top of the charts—a record number. Here, too, the slippery slopes of hardcover fiction and mass market provided mixed experiences. While 22 novels made it to the top spot, eight stayed for only one week. Twenty of these books grabbed their top spot in their first week in the stores, which is why publishers put so much effort and cash into the one-day laydown. The only book with double-digit time at the top was A Thousand Splendid Suns—11 weeks in that slot. James Patterson held the top spot for 12 weeks, but that was based on his six bestsellers in the course of the year. In mass market, 15 of the 27 books that made it to #1 dropped off after one week; 24 of these paperbacks reached #1 in their first week out.

The Secret dominated the lead position in nonfiction, holding the #1 slot for 29 weeks, leaving fewer opportunities for other players. There were an additional 11 books that made it to #1, but the one with the second longest tenure was You: Staying Young, with five weeks. In trade paperback, three of the seven books in the top spot had long tenures—Water for Elephants was #1 for 14 weeks; Eat, Pray, Love for 11 weeks; and The Memory Keeper's Daughter for 10 (the latter was also #1 for 22 weeks in 2006).

Debut novels had one of their poorest showings in 10 years. Only two—Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Morrow) and Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (Bantam)—made the weekly charts. Dominating the fiction charts were veteran players—James Patterson (six titles), Dean Koontz (three titles), Danielle Steel (three) and Nora Roberts (three). At least 11 others had two hits on the 2007 lists: David Baldacci, Suzanne Brockmann, Clive Cussler, Eric Jerome Dickey, Janet Evanovich, W.E.B. Griffin, Greg Iles, Debbie Macomber, Richard North Patterson, Nicholas Sparks and Stuart Woods.

Two religion publishers, Tyndale and Revell, had the most successful inspirational memoirs—Quiet Strength and 90 Minutes in Heaven; both sold one million copies in their first year in the marketplace. Memoirs were unusually successful last year, including Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, a huge hit on Sarah Crichton's first list for FSG. Autobiographies by celebs, such as Alan Alda, Eric Clapton and Steve Martin, also enjoyed success on the list.

Random House Inc. continues to be the leader in bestselling real estate, both on the hardcover and paperback sides. The impetus for this is the number of divisions and imprints that compete for the bestseller spots—last year 19 of them landed books on the list. But overall, Random lost the largest percentage of bestseller real estate last year—a total of 7% (4.9% for hardcovers). Knopf had the biggest drop in number of titles and number of weeks on the list—in 2007 it had 10 bestsellers with a total of 52 weeks. Contrast that performance with how it fared in 2006, when 21 hardcover bestsellers accounted for a total of 101 weeks. That drop of 49% was certainly a factor in Random House's loss.

Simon & Schuster showed the strongest hardcover bestseller gain: 6.1%. It had more long-running bestsellers than any other conglomerate, including The Secret, with 50 weeks on the 2007 charts.

Penguin USA fared the best on the paperback side, gaining 5% more bestseller real estate in 2007. Books with staying power made a difference. Three of the four longest-running bestsellers (all Penguin titles)—The Kite Runner, The Memory Keeper's Daughter and Eat, Pray, Love—had a combined total of 147 weeks on the trade paper charts, holding about 18% of the available slots. Algonquin's 2.3% gain can be attributed to one title—Water for Elephants, its first #1 national bestseller.

With about 200,000 titles published annually, less than 1% make the national charts. As we have said many times on these pages, the bestsellers are the books that get the most attention. But more often than not, the other 99% are what makes publishing worthwhile.