Oct 3 2007
USA Today Bestseller List Predictions, Week Ending September 30, 2007
Laydown date, we don’t need no stinking laydown date. JR Ward’s Lover Unbound was spotted at least two weeks prior to its official laydown date of September 25, 2007, and while sales were brisk in those two weeks, it couldn’t compare to the onslaught of readers who hit the bookstores the week of September 25. She might not be number one on the USA Today list, but I would be surprised if she were lower than 2. Nora Roberts reprint, The Gift: Home for Christmas / All I Want for Christmas, sold well and that will likely be in the top 15. Debbie Macomber’s book, 74 Seaside Avenue sold approximately the same number of books last week as The Gift and she was 11.
Lower on the list and within the top 50, I would expect to see Heather Graham’s The Seance, Victoria Alexander’s Secrets of a Proper Lady, Suzanne Brockmann’sForbidden, and Christine Feehan’s Dark Celebration.
Around the top 50-75, should be Madeline Hunter’s Lessons of Desire, Carly Phillips’ Sealed With A Kiss, Katie MacAlister’s Ain’t Myth-behaving: Two Novellas, Debbie Macomber’s Where Angels Go.
In the upper 80s to 100s, Lisa Kleypas’ Mine Till Midnight. Farther down would be Brenda Joyce’s Dark Rival, and Monica McCarty’s Highlander Unchained: A Novel.
So why am I doing this? I am tracking the USA Today bestseller list for romances and comparing it to Bookscan to see if the two correlate in any way so I figured that I would just post my ruminations. I’d love to hear what other readers think as to the books that should be on the USA Today list.
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Oct 03, 2007 @ 15:47:15
This reminds me, did the Serpent Prince not make it on the USA today list at all?
It’s very interesting to see that Monica McCarty’s books, of which I’ve yet to read a review online at the sites I frequent, are doing really great, whereas Singh’s and Hoyt’s books, though getting tons of online word-of-mouth, haven’t cracked the list yet. Power of the print run.
I’d better send my editor some flowers and beg for a huge print run.
Oct 03, 2007 @ 22:39:20
I don’t think the SP did make any list. I feel like Hoyt and Singh are on the cusp, though, of really breaking through.
Oct 04, 2007 @ 01:19:40
I think you are right about Lover Unbound. It will probably make the top 10. As for being #1, she’s got a bigger chance at the NYT Bestseller list because it breaks down the books into fiction/non-fiction/hardcover or paperbacks whereas with the USA Today Bestseller list, she has to compete with everyone else. What would be interesting to see is how will it fare in the long run. I remember that Lover Revealed made well on the list too but it had big drops in the subsequent weeks.
Oct 04, 2007 @ 12:59:58
Controversy sells books, so LU should place well. I know I helped with that because my order arrived on release day. Read it in one sitting and emailed off a rant to a fellow reader just to release some steam.