The Independent Publishers Caucus, a collective of 117 small and independent publishers, has announced the launch of a new weekly bestseller list in partnership with the American Booksellers Association, creating what organizers say is the first national ranking focused exclusively on independent press titles sold at independent bookstores.

Dubbed the Independent Press Top 40, the new list debuts this Wednesday and offers separate fiction and nonfiction lists of 40 titles each. The intent is to surface popular titles that are typically denied appearances on traditional bestseller lists due to the dominance of Big Five blockbusters.

The new list draws from sales rankings reported by independent bookstores to the ABA—the same methodology the ABA uses for its Indie Bestseller and regional lists—but filtered to include only independent publishers. Updated lists will be published every Thursday and will be available as PDFs and Excel spreadsheets at the IPC website, with direct links to titles on Bookshop.org.

"When you take out Amazon, when you take out the large press books, and you just have independent publishers at independent bookstores, you get this really interesting list," Dan Simon, IPC cofounder and publisher at Seven Stories Press, told PW. "It's like going to a foreign land. It's really different."

Unlike BookScan-based lists that track unit sales, the Top 40 uses rankings supplied by ABA member stores. Each participating bookstore submits its top 40 fiction and nonfiction titles ranked by sales volume, regardless of whether the top seller moved 10 copies or 1,000. This methodology, Simon said, creates "an equalizing force" that allows both high-volume titles and books selling smaller quantities across many stores to appear.

Publishers do not need to be members of the IPC to qualify for inclusion on its lists. While titles from larger independent publishers like Europa, Grove Atlantic, and Norton (the largest publisher that qualifies for the list) have featured prominently, the lists have also included books from smaller presses like Transit Books, Nightboat Books, Library of America, and Binary Press, among others.

"There are books in the top ten that are selling vast numbers, but it also recognizes titles from independent publishers that are selling remarkably well at a lot of independent stores but not altogether in vast numbers," Simon said, noting that the relatively large number of 40 books per list means that a wider variety of publishers have an opportunity to appear on the list. "We want as many publishers as possible represented."

The IPC chose the ABA partnership over working with BookScan because, Simon said, "We ultimately felt there was more philosophical alignment with the ABA." He added, "There's a natural solidarity between independent bookstores and independent publishers."

Allison Hill, chief executive officer of the ABA, concurred. "ABA is excited about this partnership to highlight the indie publishing books that indie bookstores know and love," she said. "This indie-to-indie collaboration is a celebration of the creativity, diversity, and entrepreneurial spirit that defines both independent publishing and independent bookselling."

Sanj Kharbanda, associate publisher and marketing director at Beacon Press and member of the IPC steering committee, said he hopes the lists will be useful to the more than 400 new stores that opened in 2024, according to ABA data.

"The lists could help these booksellers differentiate their inventory and discover independent press titles selling well at established stores around the country," Kharbanda said. Furthermore, they could help "librarians who struggle with collection development for books without reviews," he added.

The impact, he noted, is intended to be long-term. "Maybe a bookseller will see one title from a press and then start following those presses, rather than just buying one title from that press," Kharbanda said.

The lists can also serve the overall industry by offering additional data, even if non-quantifiable, to complement BookScan, which often struggles to capture sales of books that sell in small quantities and at a modest total volume.

"BookScan can capture 60% of one title's sales and 90% or higher of another, but it often skews in certain directions," Kharbanda said. "The Top 40 is probably something of an antidote to that."

Simon framed the lists as revealing what the book industry looks like when stripped of its largest players. "We hope that this creates a really exciting tool for independent publishers to excite our retailers," he said.