Stephen King’s follow-up to his 1977 novel The Shining was the most buzzed-about book on social media for the month of September. Online conversations about Dr. Sleep, released September 24, were dominated by women, who contributed 61% of the online commentary.
In second place was a yet-to-be-published title: House of Hades, by Rick Riordan. “[It] keeps building momentum as the early October release date approaches,” said Jeff Costello, v-p of CoverCake, which measures how books are faring on social media.
Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard debuted on the list this month in third place. Costello called the book the “most consistent” of the month, producing a steady stream of comments throughout September.
Another forthcoming title, Allegiant, the final installment of Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, also hit the list. Many fans are talking about preordering the novel, due out on October 22, and reading it on the first day to avoid spoilers, according to Costello. The Divergent movie series is ramping up (the first film is slated for release in March 2014), which is no doubt contributing to the online hype.
Nicholas Sparks’s latest, The Longest Ride, was also new to the list this month. It was the book with the highest percentage of social media comments from women—71%. While women are typically more vocal in online book discussions than men, in most months men account for more comments than women on at least one or two titles. In September, though, women outtalked men across the board.
CoverCake’s Top 10 Books in Social Media, September 2013
Rank | Title | Author | Scale* | Male | Female |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Doctor Sleep | Stephen King | 10 | 39% | 61% |
2 | House of Hades | Rick Riordan | 9 | 45 | 55 |
3 | Killing Jesus | O’Reilly/Dugard | 8 | 46 | 54 |
4 | Allegiant | Veronica Roth | 6 | 49 | 51 |
5 | Big Girl Panties | Stephanie Evanovich | 4 | 33 | 67 |
6 | The Cuckoo’s Calling | Robert Galbraith | 3 | 41 | 59 |
7 | Lean In | Sheryl Sandberg | 3 | 46 | 54 |
8 | Inferno | Dan Brown | 2 | 47 | 53 |
9 | Engaged | Gregg Lederman | 1 | 35 | 65 |
10 | The Longest Ride | Nicholas Sparks | 1 | 29 | 71 |
*How many conversations took place about the book in question for every 10 comments about book #1