BLK Bestseller List Gains Momentum

The BLK Bestseller List continues to grow wit, adding more titles, authors, and imprints in its mission to help readers discover Black authors. The BLK Bestseller List was developed by the Black Book Accelerator, an initiative that includes Troy Johnson, head of the African American Literature Book Club.

The Black Book Accelerator began collecting sales data on books written by Black authors in January 2024 and released its first list this May. The list, sourced from Circana BookScan data, consists of monthly stats on the top 20 hardcover and paperback fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, as well as lists for young adult and poetry. Once the data comes in from BookScan, Johnson filters through the data for BISAC codes like “Black” and “African American,” and then manually sifts out books that might be about Black characters or experiences, but not by a Black author.

Now with 23 months of data on hand, the BLK Bestseller List has featured 711 distinct titles written by 483 different authors, which have been published by 256 imprints from 98 publishing houses. Johnson told PW he was surprised by the diversity of the imprints he found on the list. “I thought it would be dominated by the Big Five,” he said, adding that he is gratified to see so many books from independent presses. He notes that the objective of the list is to “elevate” all books by Black authors and since many of the smaller presses have limited resources to do so, the BLK Bestseller List gives titles some exposure.

He noted that the November list features several indie publishers who placed books in the top 10 among the list’s eight categories, including Candlewick (children’s nonfiction) and Chronicle Books (adult hardcover nonfiction), while a self-published title was number five on the poetry list.

Johnson said the BLK Bestseller List would be a tremendous resource for booksellers who are looking for books by Black authors who are starting to gain some sales traction. To that end, Johnson said he is talking to a number of bookselling organizations to help promote the books to their members. (For PW’s part, beginning today, PW will run a monthly link and brief story from the BLK Bestseller List.)

It will come as no surprise that Michelle Obama’s newest book, The Look, was the top selling title on the November list, selling nearly 79,000 copies. Patricia Smith received a solid bounce from her National Book Awards victory in the poetry category and landed at number one in poetry for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems. Kennedy Ryan continued her strong run on the list, placing three titles on the adult paperback fiction category.

“We’re hoping that as more booksellers promote the list, we will start to move the needle in selling books,” Johnson said.

BLK Bestseller List Top 10 Overall, November 2025

The November 2025 Bestsellers List organized by format is available at blkbestsellers.com.