The fourth novel in the I am Number Four series by Pittacus Lore (a pseudonym for James Frey), The Fall of Five, dominated social media chatter in August, according to the social media tracking service CoverCake.
Speaking of The Fall of Five, which was published by HarperCollins on Aug. 27, Jeff Costello, v-p of CoverCake, said, “This book just kept picking up momentum all month as the release date approached. It had more than twice as many comments as its nearest competitor in the last week of the month.”
Costello also noticed a large percentage of people who referenced both The Fall of Five and Rick Riordan’s upcoming book, House of Hades, in the same comment. “We’ve never seen that happen before with two different authors and book series,” he added.
The Returned, by Jason Mott, and Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season were both new to the list this week, likely driven by big PR pushes from their respective publishers (see p. 9 for PW’s coverage of an unconventional publicity event for The Returned).
As is typical, women monopolized the online commentary, but splits were close to even for several titles, the exception being Sheryl Sandberg’s career title, Lean In. Greg Lederman’s Engaged! also made the ranking, placing both a business and career book in the top 10.
CoverCake’s Top 10 Books in Social Media, August 2013
| Rank | Title | Author | Scale* | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Fall of Five | Pittacus Lore | 10 | 47% | 53% |
| 2 | The Cuckoo’s Calling | Robert Gailbraith | 9 | 49 | 51 |
| 3 | Inferno | Dan Brown | 8 | 46 | 54 |
| 4 | House of Hades | Rick Riordan | 5 | 43 | 57 |
| 5 | Lean In | Sheryl Sandberg | 4 | 11 | 89 |
| 6 | The Returned | Jason Mott | 3 | 55 | 45 |
| 7 | The Bone Season | Samantha Shannon | 3 | 32 | 68 |
| 8 | Engaged | Gregg Lederman | 2 | 56 | 44 |
| 9 | Big Girl Panties | Stephanie Evanovich | 2 | 39 | 61 |
| 10 | Sea of Monsters | Rick Riordan | 1 | 39 | 61 |
*This article has been corrected. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jobie Hughes was co-author the Pittacus Lore series. Hughes is not involved in this title.
