Last month, as fans eagerly awaited the October 3 premiere of David Fincher’s adaptation of Gone Girl, they took to social media, making Gillian Flynn’s 2012 megabestseller the most buzzed-about title online in September.
“It is always exciting to see a previous #1 book jump back to the top of the list when the movie is released,” said Jeff Costello, v-p of CoverCake, which tracks how books are faring on major social media platforms.
At #2 was E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, also enjoying a boost from a hotly anticipated film adaptation, due to hit the big screen in February 2015.
Women dominated online chatter about books last month, as is typical. Killing Patton by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard was the only exception in CoverCake’s top-10 list, with men generating 69% of the commentary; the title ranked third in September.
CoverCake’s Top 10 Books in Social Media, September 2014
| Rank | Title | Author | BookScan* | Scale** | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gone Girl | Gillian Flynn | 2 | 10 | 22% | 78% |
| 2 | 50 Shades of Grey | E.L. James | – | 7 | 35 | 65 |
| 3 | Killing Patton | O’Reilly/Dugard | 1 | 6 | 69 | 31 |
| 4 | Burn | Patterson/Ledwidge | 5 | 6 | 49 | 51 |
| 5 | Blood of Olympus | Rick Riordan | NYP | 3 | 42 | 58 |
| 6 | Gray Mountain | John Grisham | NYP | 3 | 40 | 60 |
| 7 | Maze Runner | James Dashner | 15 | 2 | 46 | 54 |
| 8 | You Can, You Will | Joel Osteen | 19 | 2 | 41 | 59 |
| 9 | Not That Kind of Girl | Lena Dunham | 8 | 2 | 38 | 62 |
| 10 | The Fault in Our Stars John Green | 22 | 1 | 44 | 56 |
* For the week ended Oct. 5. A dash (–) indicates that the book did not appear among nielsen bookscan’s top 100 bestselling titles. If the book was not published by Oct. 5, it is listed as “NYP.”
** Number of comments about the book in question for every 10 comments about the #1 title.
