Book
publishing loves a best-seller and all book publishers and authors seemingly
cover the status on every book published.
So when is the best time to release a book to have the greatest chance of hitting
a major best-seller list?
Well,
you have several factors at play, including:
·
The
book’s genre
·
The
author
·
The
publisher
·
Competing
books/price
·
Media
exposure
·
Social
media coverage
·
Advertising
But
one of the factors could be timing.
According
to a Wall Street Journal report,
based on NPD Book Scan sales of print books in 2017, sales peak industry-wide every quarter -- in March, June, September, and December.
For the other eight months, some 45 million to 52 million books are sold
per month. sales in March, June, and September
outnumber August by about 8 million units.
In December, they double the norm, topping out at 118,400,000 books
sold.
Some
of this has to do with shopping patterns of consumers, holidays, store
discounts, and the release schedule of major books.
In a
separate study quoted by the WSJ,
where eight years’ worth of thousands of NYT
bestsellers were examined, a pattern developed.
“Invariably,”
says WSJ, “the best-sellers achieved
peak sales soon after publication. For
fiction, that was in two to six weeks.
For nonfiction, the peak came during the first 15 weeks.”
The
window of time for becoming a best-seller seems to have shrunk for most books.
So many books become bestsellers in their launch week, in part, based on
built-up pre-orders for weeks and months in advance of its official release.
Books
don’t seem to last a long time on these lists, often getting knocked off by
other, newer titles. With over 3,500 new
books released daily, including 1,000 from traditional publishers, competition
is fierce for a handful of slots on any best-seller list. Sometimes the difference of a few hundred copies sold in a
given week can make the difference between getting on a list and falling short.
Theoretically,
the best time to release a book could be in February or May or October, when
sales are the lowest, meaning you have less competition to hit a list.
December is clearly the worst month, simply because every book competes for holiday attention. But whenever you release a book, the biggest factor to hitting a bestseller list may come down to your marketing efforts – or just luck.
December is clearly the worst month, simply because every book competes for holiday attention. But whenever you release a book, the biggest factor to hitting a bestseller list may come down to your marketing efforts – or just luck.
DON”T MISS THESE!!!
No. 1 Book Publicity Resource: 2019
Toolkit For Authors -- FREE
The Commandments of Author Networking
Does Book Publishing Use A Fixer Like
Ray Donovan?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.