Dan Brown's Inferno is the bestselling print and Kindle e-book so far this year, but, unlike last year when the 20 books on our print and Kindle e-book year-to-date bestseller lists looked very similar at the top, there's a big difference between the two for the first six months of 2013.
Last year, the 50 Shades and Hunger Games trilogies were tearing up both the print and e-book lists, owning, in all formats and editions, the top nine print slots and the top seven e-book slots. While titles in both series are still selling, they're not nearly the juggernaut they were, with Fifty Shades of Grey lingering on the print list, and Fifty Shade Freed at the bottom of the Kindle list.
The print list this year has a few surprises: depending on your definition of "thriller," there are only four books in this genre represented in the top 20 (Inferno, Gone Girl, World War Z, and The Innocent). That's right: of the top 20 selling titles so far this year in print, none were written by James Patterson. Commercial and literary fiction (Khaled Hosseini's And The Mountains Echoed notched in at #9 in print) share space with highbrow nonfiction (Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, at #4) and children's books from Jeff Kinney and Dr. Seuss.
The Great Gatsby enjoyed a huge lift in print and e from the film adaptation, and the Robertson family -- the colorful, supremely bearded Louisiana family behind the Duck Dynasty TV phenomenon -- is selling print books at a rate to keep up with their duck calls.
The e-book list is dominated by genre fiction and big brand name authors (Patterson, Sparks, Baldacci, Coben, Picoult, Roberts), though two self-published books, Colleen Hoover's Hopeless and Elisabeth Naughton's Wait For Me, muscled onto the list. Only one YA novel made the cut on the e-book list, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
It's difficult to pin down an average retail price for print books, but it's safe to say that e-books on the Kindle list are priced substantially lower than their print counterparts, with only eight of 20 Kindle e-books priced at $9.99 or above as of July 3, for an average price of just under $8.
Bestsellers, January-June 2013
Nielsen BookScan Top 20, week ending 6/30/13
1. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
2. Proof Of Heaven by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster)
3. The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books)
4. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf)
5. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Thomas Nelson)
6. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
7. Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss (Random House)
8. Fifty Shades Of Grey by E. L. James (Vintage)
9. And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
10. Happy, Happy, Happy by Phil Robertson (Howard)
11. A Memory Of Light by Robert Jordan (Tor)
12. Green Eggs And Ham by Dr. Seuss (Random House)
13. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown)
14. American Sniper by Chris Kyle (Harper)
15. Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)
16. World War Z by Max Brooks (Three Rivers Press)
17. The Best Of Me by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central)
18. Shred: The Revolutionary Diet by Ian K. Smith (St. Martin's)
19. The Innocent by David Baldacci (Vision)
20. The Duck Commander Family by Willie Robertson (Howard)
Amazon Kindle Top 20, as of 7/1/13
1. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
2. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central)
3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown)
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
5. Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (Colleen Hoover)
6. The Hit by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
7. Wait for Me by Elisabeth Naughton (Elisabeth Naughton)
8. Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson (Little, Brown)
9. Entwined with You by Sylvia Day (Berkley)
10. Damaged by H.M. Ward (Laree Bailey Press)
11. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (Little, Brown)
12. The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick (Sarah Crichton/FSG)
13. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (Atria)
14. The Forgotten by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
15. Six Years by Harlan Coben (Dutton)
16. 12th of Never by James Patterson (Little, Brown)
17. Crazy Little Thing by Tracy Brogan (Montlake Romance)
18. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
19. Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts (Putnam)
20. Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James (Vintage)
