Inside 2015’s Category Bestsellers

Hollywood, perennial bestsellers, and publishing powerhouses were the engines behind the 2015 bestsellers in many categories on the adult fiction and nonfiction sides, with several of PW’s category bestseller lists looking a lot like greatest-hits compilations. (These lists are based on data from Nielsen BookScan, which tracks print sales at participating outlets.)

The big and small screens made themselves felt across several category lists, notably Science Fiction, where the top three titles were different editions of The Martian, and five others were related to a film or TV series. The Biography and Autobiography list was also heavily influenced by the movie business.

The Cookbooks list was dominated by TV personalities, with half of the top 10 books coming from authors who have shows on the Food Network or QVC. Media likewise had a huge impact on the History and Political Science list: seven of the top 10 books were by conservative media figures.

Though Paula Hawkins is by now a well-known author, she wasn’t when her debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, published last January. It blew away the competition on the Thrillers list, which is traditionally dominated by juggernauts such as Lee Child, John Grisham, and Stephen King.

The other (relative) surprise was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, a personal meditation on race in America that charted on the Biography and Autobiography list. In late June, in the wake of the police shooting of Walter Scott in Charleston, S.C., publisher Spiegel & Grau moved up the publication of the book from September to July. It’s been a bestseller list fixture since, won the National Book Award in the fall, and is a finalist for the NBCC Award.

For an in-depth look at how categories fared overall, see “The Hot and Cold Categories of 2015” in our January 18 issue.

Fiction

Comics

Perennial bestsellers occupy the top spots of the Comics list, led by Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. Collections did big business: all three of the Walking Dead compendiums are among the category’s bestsellers, along with volumes of both the Tokyo Ghoul horror manga and the paranormal SF Saga series. A big-budget film adaptation of Marvel’s Civil War, a collection of comics written by Mark Millar, will hit theaters in May.

Mystery

The mystery category saw a 12% decline in print sales in 2015 from 2014, despite a barrage of bestsellers from the usual suspects. The erosion is largely due to mystery being a popular e-book category; even so, the thriller category, which draws many of the same readers, saw an annual gain in print sales.

Romance

Similar to mysteries, print romance sales continue to be chipped away at by digital. The category posted a 9% unit sales decrease for the year. The print romance market is still vast (with 28 million physical copies sold in 2015), and is, like mystery, fueled by reliable powerhouses. E.L. James, Nicholas Sparks, and Nora Roberts posted big numbers last year, with James’s Grey coming it at #3 overall on our Romance list.

Science Fiction

Film and TV had a big impact on the SF category last year, with The Martian becoming the genre’s hottest property thanks to the Matt Damon–led film adaptation. The new Jurassic Park film lifted sales of the original novel, and Amazon’s adaptation of Man in the High Castle was a boon for Philip K. Dick’s classic (it sold just shy of 7,000 copies in 2014). The new Star Wars flick, meanwhile, has set off a licensing gold rush, with Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath one of many books to catch fire.

Thrillers

This time last year, The Girl on the Train was enjoying its second-straight week atop our Hardcover Fiction list. It would go on to stay there through mid-April, and stay in the top five until September. It outsold the #2 book in the thrillers category by 769,000 copies. Not bad for a debut novel from an imprint not known as a commercial fiction juggernaut.

Nonfiction

Biography/Autobiography

The category notched a 3% increase overall in 2015 compared to 2014, with gains driven by film adaptations and name-brand authors. Two editions each of American Sniper and Unbroken feature in the top 10, and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild also rode a wave of Hollywood popularity. But the break-out book on the Biography and Autobiography list last year was Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me.

Business/Economics

The business category saw unit sales up 3% in 2015 over the previous year, with established authors (Anthony Robbins, Dave Ramsey) doing a lot of the heavy lifting, alongside category classics such as Strengths Finder, Crucial Conversation Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, and Emotional Intelligence.

Food

Last year’s bestselling cookbooks support the notion that the category is platform driven: Food Network star Ree Drummond claimed three of the top 10 spots; Ina Garten took another. Other big titles included Thug Kitchen (originally a Tumblr) and a cookbook from QVC personality Meredith Laurence.

History/Political Science

The category saw a 13% gain in 2015, with titles from conservative imprints dominating the top 10 list. Bill O’Reilly, Ben Carson, Glenn Beck, Brian Kilmeade, Mark R. Levin, and Donald Trump are the household names who have right-leaning category bestsellers. Outside the political arena, Erik Larson claimed two spots, and Pulitzer-winner Stacy Schiff took the #10 spot with The Witches.

Religion

One of the big stories out of the religion category in 2015 was the success of books related to the movie War Room. Fervent (#2 on the list) and The Battle Plan for Prayer (#6) are both companion books to the film. Other titles that helped to push a 13% gain in the category were various editions of Jesus Calling, Joel Osteen’s The Power of I Am, and Lifeway CEO Thom S. Rainer’s I Am a Church Member.