Do people invest in buying books that help them- or
just help them escape?
Certainly many people buy fiction and non-fiction
books but a look at a recent list of PW Bestsellers (March 10-16), shows each
of the top 12 hardcover fiction titles outsold each of the top hardcover
non-fiction books.
In fact, the top three fiction hardcover books
combined to outsell the nonfiction hardcover books, 55,000 to 34, 000. No
contest.
Interestingly, people were willing to pay more for
fiction than non-fiction, in some cases. The non-fiction top 25 hardcovers had
one book below $24 (the bottom price on a fiction hardcover) - at $18 and
another at a low price of $9.99. But the 10- dollar book could only place 21st
in sales.
Only 22 hardcover books on the lists sold more than
5,000 in the week. This means all other hardcover books struggle to average
just 100 copies sold per state (50 x 100).
Only 11 of the 50 hardcover best-sellers made the
list in their first full week out. But that means once you make the list, you
have a reasonable shot of staying on it.
If we look at the bestselling hardcover books for
all of 2013, Inferno by Dan Brown (fiction), topped the lists with 1.7 million
copies sold. Bill O’Reilly had the top non-fiction hardcover book- Killing
Jesus- with 1.5 million copies. 18 hardcover books sold 500,000+ copies- split
evenly amongst fiction and non-fiction.
Regardless of format, Americans are buying more
units of books than ever before. This is something to celebrate- whether you
like fiction or non-fiction, print or e-book.
SPEAKERS TOOLKIT FOR
AUTHORS
Brian
Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and
not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter.
You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important
when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted
by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014
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