The eighth book in Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series, Hard Luck, was the bestselling book across all print formats in 2013, selling over 1.8 million hardcover copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks roughly 80% of print sales. It was also the third most popular title among print books purchased on Amazon. Yet the book didn’t crack the top 100 on Amazon’s Kindle bestsellers list for 2013. In 2012, The Third Wheel, the seventh book in the series, performed similarly—an indication that the immensely popular, illustration-heavy series for middle graders isn’t as suited to digital. On the other hand, last year’s bestselling young adult novels in Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, which have shown cross-generational appeal, appeared on all three lists. The first book in the trilogy, Divergent, landed at #6 on Nielsen’s ranking, #2 on Kindle’s, and #19 on the Amazon print list. The second title, Insurgent, appeared at #8 on the Kindle list, and the third book, Allegiant, hit #11 on Nielsen’s list and #7 on Kindle’s.
The 2013 charts revealed, once again, that fiction is the genre of choice for customers who read e-books: the top 20 bestselling books on Kindle’s list were all novels. In fact, the highest-ranking nonfiction title on the Kindle bestseller list for 2013 was Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven at #47, followed by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s Killing Jesus at #52. The performance of the books in the Kindle ranking stands in stark contrast to their relative positions on Nielsen’s print list. Killing Jesus wound up at #3 on that list, which indicated sales of over 1.1 million copies for the title. Proof of Heaven landed just behind it on Nielsen, at #4, selling over 935,000 copies throughout the year.
Movie adaptations moved the needle in 2013 for titles new and old. Initially published in 2010, Nicholas Sparks’s Safe Haven was the sixth bestselling Kindle title in 2013 (the film version was released in February). With a movie adaptation released in the fall, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, originally released in 2006, finished at #10 on the Kindle list and #15 on Amazon’s print list. Ender’s Game, which hit the shelves in 1985, was brought back into the fold thanks to its film adaptation, which opened in November. The movie-tie-in version of Orson Scott Card’s novel sat in the #15 slot on the Kindle chart. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, released in 1925, was set to screen by director Baz Luhrmann, in a film version released last spring, sending the American classic back to the bestseller charts: it hit #16 on Nielsen’s list, which indicated print sales of over 560,000 copies for the title this year. Gatsby also appeared on the Kindle list at #12, and on Amazon’s print list at #9. Divergent, and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (#13 on Nielsen, and #14 on both the Kindle and Amazon print lists), are being adapted into films with 2014 releases.
Nielsen BookScan Top 20
1. Hard Luck (Wimpy Kid #8) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet)
2. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
3. Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (Henry Holt)
4. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster)
5. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
6. Divergent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
7. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Thomas Nelson)
8. Sycamore Row by John Grisham (Doubleday)
9. The Third Wheel (Wimpy Kid #7) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet)
10. Happy, Happy, Happy by Phil Robertson (Howard Books)
11. Allegiant by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
12. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf)
13. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton)
14. Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer (Crown Forum)
15. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (Scribner)
16. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
17. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
18. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (Vintage)
19. Si-Cology 1 by Si Robertson (Howard Books)
20. Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)
Amazon Kindle Top 20
1. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
3. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Crown)
4. Sycamore Row by John Grisham (Doubleday)
5. The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty (Putnam)
6. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central)
7. Allegiant by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
8. Insurgent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
9. The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (L, B/Mulholland)
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf)
11. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
12. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
13. The Hit by David Baldacci (Grand Central)
14. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton)
15. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)
16. Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (Colleen Hoover)
17. Entwined with You by Sylvia Day (Berkley)
18. Never Go Back by Lee Child (Delacorte)
19. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
20. Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson (Little, Brown)
Amazon Print Top 20
1. Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup)
2. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf)
3. Hard Luck (Wimpy Kid #8) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet)
4. Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims by Rush Limbaugh (S&S/Threshold)
5. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Thomas Nelson)
6. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
7. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
8. Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer (Crown Forum)
9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
10. Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (Henry Holt)
11. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster)
12. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Ed. by American Psychiatric Assoc. (APP)
13. The Official SAT Study Guide, Second Ed. (College Board)
14. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton)
15. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf)
16. Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Knopf)
17. The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (Northfield)
18. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Ed. American Psychological Assoc. (APA)
19. Divergent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
20. Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids by Rob Elliott (Revell)
