Bestseller Stat Shot
With the Ebola outbreak raging in West Africa and fears over the contagion mounting in the U.S.—helped along by sometimes overheated news coverage—it’s no surprise to see a jump in sales for books about the virus. Richard Preston’s classic The Hot Zone (Anchor), about Ebola’s origins, is seeing a boost in print, and it also appears on the bestseller list for Apple’s iBooks store this week (as of this writing, the title was #454 on bn.com and #46 on Amazon). Then there’s The Ebola Survival Handbook (Lost Arts Publishing). It was released a month ago and is the #2 bestselling Ebola book, according to Nielsen BookScan. Here’s the sales history of each for the past four weeks.
| 9/28 | 10/5 | 10/12 | 10/19 | |
| The Hot Zone | 1,177 | 2,062 | 3,004 | 3,666 |
| Ebola Survival Handbook | 121 | 561 | 970 | 1,442 |
From the Newsletters
Lauren Oliver, author of the spooky new novel Rooms (Ecco), picks her 10 favorite ghost stories.
On the scene with 1,200 fans at Rick Riordan’s final stop on his tour for The Blood of Olympus (Disney-Hyperion).
Looking at books that take a new line on secular living.
After becoming Amazon KDP’s bestselling author of all time, Barbara Freethy decided it was time to get into print.
Sign up for these newsletters and more.
Blogs
What you may have missed if you haven’t stopped by PW’s Tumblr lately: counting down to our best books of 2014 with Gustavo Faveron Patriau, Jaime Hernandez, Solace Ames, and others; and publishing humor circa 1915 from PW’s archives.
Think you have what it takes to be a master book blurber? Take the alliterative blurb challenge.
Podcasts
Debut author Adi Alsaid talks about his YA road-trip novel, Let’s Get Lost (Harlequin Teen), how his own travels have shaped him as a person, and what it’s been like seeing his first book make its way into the world.
How the increasing number of female comics fans is spurring editorial and retail targeted at women, and new genres outside superheroes. Plus, inside Humble Bundle’s DRM-free pay-what-you-want promotion.
PW senior writer Andrew Albanese talks about Amazon’s deal with Simon & Schuster and a key fair-use win for publishers—though, upon further inspection, it may not be such a big win after all.
The most-read review on publishersweekly.com last week was White Bird in a Blizzard by Laura Kasischke (Hyperion).
Move to a new job? Been promoted? Let the industry know with PW’s Job Moves, a running account of who’s moving where. Check it out, and send in your job news here.
Don’t forget to sign up for GalleyTracker, the best way to submit titles to PW for review consideration. It lets you keep track of where your galleys are in the review process and is specifically designed for publishers submitting multiple galleys. Find out more here.
Heavy metal legend Scott Ian has some very strong opinions about what’s wrong with publishing. He talks about those and I’m the Man (Da Capo), his memoir about his years performing with Anthrax. Then PW comics reviews editor Heidi MacDonald dishes on the French invasion in comics.
