Bestsellers '10: The Year in Bestsellers

If we had to name the author of the year, it would be Stieg Larsson. With a combined weekly total of 202 weeks on the 2010 bestseller charts and an impressive 59 of those in the #1 spot, his Millennium trilogy—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest—outpaced all other bestsellers. Larsson's posthumously published trilogy (he died suddenly in 2004 at 50 shortly after he delivered the manuscripts to his Swedish publisher) was the main factor in Random House Inc.'s 3.2% gain in its bestseller share of paperback slots in 2010.

Bestseller gains and losses is the raison d'être of this annual article, and the 2010 numbers show very few surprises. A figure that keeps growing is the number of books that made a first landing on PW's weekly top 15 charts. Last year, 648 titles did just that, 15% more than the 563 figure in 2009. This is good news, but offset by another figure that necessarily gets lower—the length of time a bestseller gets to stay among the top 15.

For the first time in these annual calculations, hardcover fiction top-sellers that made a list for the first time went over the 200 mark (211 to be exact). But only nine enjoyed double-digit runs while 61 claimed just a single week. It was also the first time that fiction hardcover had more bestseller landings than mass market. In 2010, 199 new books were on the mass market weekly charts—eight with double-digit runs and 49 with books that were on for a single week. For both hardcover fiction and mass market, titles with strong traction were down: in 2009, 10 of the 192 hardcover novels had double digit runs, and in mass market, 15 did.

Both hardcover nonfiction and trade paperbacks had a record number of new books on the lists and that affected the length of time on the weekly charts, especially in trade paper. In trade paper, it was the first time that more than 70 new titles went on the charts, crimping some long-tenure opportunities. Back in 2008, 30 of the 56 bestselling trade paperbacks enjoyed 10-plus weeks on the charts. In 2010, only 20 of the 72 new titles had double digit runs. In nonfiction, 20 books had double-digit runs and 41 went off after a week.

Kudos to first novels. The only titles that were on the charts every week—The Help in hardcover fiction and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in mass market—were debut novels. Both are still tracking on their respective charts. Another first fiction, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes, had a very respectable eight-week run on the fiction charts.

Conglomerate Muscle

The majority of players on the weekly charts are always the publishing conglomerates. But while their control of bestseller positions continues to grow, there are some subtle power shifts. In 2010, five houses—Random House, Penguin, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan—accounted for 84% of all the hardcover bestseller positions and 77% of all paperback positions. Throw in five more companies—Macmillan, Hyperion, Tyndale, Workman/Algonquin, Harlequin, and Kensington—and the hardcover and paperback percentages go to 94.4% and 93.6%, respectively. Not much room for the thousands of other publishers on these weekly charts.

Random House continues to be the lead player on the 2010 weekly charts in both hardcover and paperback, but its margins have narrowed. In hardcover, it is less than one percentage point ahead of Penguin USA: 20.8% vs. 20.2%. Just five years ago (2006), Random House's percentage was almost double Penguin's: 28.4% vs. 15.8%. Hachette has moved up the ranks in hardcover to #3, gaining a few percentage points each year; its bestseller share was at 18.3% in 2010 compared with 9.1% in 2006.

The largest percentage gains in paperback were earned by Random House and Hachette. As noted earlier, Stieg Larsson contributed to the stronger RH figures; Nicholas Sparks, with two books on the longest-running mass market chart, contributed to Hachette's increase.

Getting to #1

Last year, 69 books made it to the top of the bestseller charts, a considerable drop from the 86 books in 2009. As in previous years, publishers counted on hardcover fiction titles aiming to hit the #1 had to do it in their first week in the stores. In fact, 30 of the 32 novels that got to #1 achieved that distinction in the first on-sale week, but only six of the 30 stayed in the top spot for another week. Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was the only 2010 newcomer that had more than a double shot; it marked an eight-week run in the #1 slot.

In nonfiction, 18 books enjoyed brief stays in the top slot, and two of those—Going Rogue and Have a Little Faith were 2009 holdovers. Fourteen of the new top performers achieved that rank in their first on-sale week; six of them for only one week. Three of the titles with strongest traction were Game Change (seven weeks), The Big Short (six weeks), and Decision Points (five weeks). Two of the year's top performers defied the odds and had strong runs at the top several weeks after their on-sale date. Women Food and God landed in the #14 spot on March 29 and hit #1 almost two months later on May 24. What happened? Oprah! First, there was a feature in her magazine, followed by a one-hour show. The title made a total of seven appearances in the lead spot. Sh*t My Dad Says landed at #9 on May 17 and #1 on June 28—a feat it enjoyed six times. Its big push was the author's 1.4 million Twitter followers.

There was very little opportunity for a shot at #1 in mass market last year. Only eight titles topped the charts and that is a huge drop from 23 titles that could make the same claim in 2009. Blame it on Larsson and Sparks. The former had an astounding 24-week run for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Nicholas Sparks racked up 16 weeks with Dear John and The Last Song. Dan Brown managed to grab seven weeks in the lead for The Lost Symbol. And that left only four opportunities for the other 195 bestsellers.

Larsson was also a spoiler for the trade paperback bestsellers with Dragon Tattoo and its impressive run of 25 weeks at #1. Another first fiction, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, was 2010's second best performer—it had five weeks in the lead spot.

Veterans and Power Players

In 2009, we counted the number of books and weeks that a handful of veteran writers with multiple bestsellers enjoyed. We reported that Nora Roberts, James Patterson, and Debbie Macomber had a total of 27 bestsellers appearing 102 weeks on the charts; the year earlier, it was 28 books racking up 120 weeks. In 2010, the trio had 21 mass market titles with a combined 82 weeks on the charts. Still impressive, but less so.

The who's who among the nonfiction players included the usual subjects: politicians and their critics, and tell-alls by a slew of thespians. Memoirs from George W. Bush and wife Laura, books on or by Roosevelt, Carter, Sarah Palin, and Obama were popular; entertainers such as Keith Richards, Jay-Z, Ricky Martin, the Kardashian siblings, Carol Burnett, Oprah, and more were selling. Cookbooks from Jamie Oliver, Ina Garten, Bobby Flay, and Giada De Laurentiis were pleasing the reader palate. Name recognition continues to be the key to the literary ladder of success.

Timing is also key, and then there is patience. An unusual bestseller on the nonfiction list, marking eight weeks so far, is not from the big publishing conglomerates but from the University of California Press. It is the first volume of Autobiography of Mark Twain, written several years before Twain's death on April 21, 1910, with special instructions that publication should be 100 years after his death. He wanted the book to be "unexpurgated." His instruction stated: "There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and See." There may be a lesson here for many book publishers.

Click the links below to see this year's rankings:

PW's 2010 Longest Running Bestsellers | Bestsellers by Corporation | Ranking the Houses

PW’s 2010 Longest-Running Bestsellers

HARDCOVER

Fiction

Nonfiction

PAPERBACK

Mass Market

Trade

*These titles achieved the #1 spot during their 2010 tenure on PW's top 15 weekly bestseller lists.
Number in parentheses show's how many weeks the book was on PW's top 15 list before 2010.

BESTSELLERS BY CORPORATION | Top

How the large companies fared on PW's ‘10 charts

*This figure represents the publisher's share of the 1,530 hardcover and 1,530 paperback bestseller positions during 2010. Only the top 15 books on the weekly charts were calculated.

RANKING THE HOUSES | Top
How the Division and Imprints Competed in 2010

Adult Hardcover

Mass Market

Trade Paper