Book Sense Bestseller List Reporting Hits an All-Time High

Last week, the number of bookstores with Book Sense reporting to the Book Sense Bestseller Lists was nearly 500 -- the highest number of bookstores reporting to date -- giving booklovers an in-depth look at the uniqueness, timeliness, and quality of the bestselling titles in local, independent bookstores.

Compiled from data gathered from bookstores with Book Sense, the Book Sense Bestseller Lists, published in the categories of hardcover fiction and nonfiction, trade paperback fiction and nonfiction, mass market, and children's literature and children's illustrated, consistently provide consumers with knowledgeable handsells not often found on other bestseller lists until weeks or months later, if at all. As the number of reporters grows, the lists become more representative of independent bookstores and even more important to publishers -- who already look to the Book Sense Bestseller Lists as an accurate barometer of trends within the independent bookselling community.

In conjunction with the regular Bestseller Lists, Book Sense also publishes weekly Extended Bestseller Lists, posted on Wednesday afternoons to ABA's trade Web site, at www.bookweb.org/booksense/bestsellers/. The Extended Bestseller Lists show the top 16 - 50 bestselling books in the categories of hardcover fiction and nonfiction and trade paperback fiction and nonfiction. In addition, the Extended Lists include the top 11 - 50 bestselling mass market titles each week. Book Sense created the extended lists to give booksellers more information about what is selling.

The extended lists are an important complement to the ever-expanding Book Sense Category Bestseller Lists. A new Category Bestseller List is published approximately every two weeks. Past Category Bestseller Lists are available online at www.bookweb.org/read/5677.

Additionally, Book Sense publishes bestseller lists in conjunction with the regional booksellers associations. The regional lists are created from weekly sales reports to the national Book Sense Bestseller Lists from independent bookstores participating in the Book Sense marketing program within each region. Currently, eight regional Book Sense Bestseller Lists are published, each one different from the next.

In late January, for example, the first Mountains & Plains Independent Bestseller List, published in a cooperative effort between Book Sense and the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association (MPBA), debuted. The MPBA list includes bestsellers in the categories of hardcover fiction and nonfiction, trade paperback fiction and nonfiction, mass market, and children's (fiction and illustrated) books.

Other regional Book Sense Bestseller Lists are published in conjunction with the Great Lakes Booksellers Association and the Upper Midwest Booksellers Association, the Mid-South Independent Booksellers Association, the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, the New England Booksellers Association, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and the Southeast Booksellers Association.

The easiest and fastest way for booksellers to report to the lists is via Nielsen BookScan. Many major computer inventory systems are supported by Nielsen BookScan's service, and reporters who opt to use this service receive a free weekly breakdown of the bestselling titles in their area. In addition, stores that are regular reporters to the lists (and stores that nominate titles to the Book Sense 76) get the benefit of early shipment of the monthly Book Sense White Box, and second boxes when they are scheduled.

For more information about Book Sense Bestseller List reporting options, click here.