Black Bestseller Lists

• The first national black bestseller list, Blackboard celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. Endorsed by the American Book-sellers Association, this monthly list is featured in Bookselling This Week and PW Daily for Booksellers. Following a seven-year stint in Essence that will end in December, the list will move to another major black magazine in the near future.

• Top five fiction and top five nonfiction titles by format, compiledfrom monthly sales at 40 independent bookstores around the U.S.

• Newly created monthly bestseller list will debut in the January 2001 issue of Essence magazine.

• Features top five fiction and top five nonfiction titles by format, based on monthly sales at 20 African-American-owned bookstores across the U.S.; reporting stores to change quarterly.

• Launched in 1996 by QBR: The Black Book Review, this list is updated monthly on www.qbr.com and in the Africana section on barnesandnoble.com. A version based on sales over two months runs in the bimonthly print magazine. Copies of the list are also sent monthly to bookstores that carry the magazine.

• Features top 10 fiction and top 10 nonfiction titles compiled from aggregate sales at 25 independent bookstores in all regions of the U.S. and at online booksellers aalbc.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, cushcity.com and mosaicbooks.com.

ONLINE BOOKSTORE BESTSELLER LISTS

• AALBC.com(African-American Literature Book Club): A clearinghouse for black books and reading groups, this barnesandnoble.com affiliate offers a list of the site's 10 topselling titles.

• Cushcity.com: This black bookstore features a list of its top five fiction and top five nonfiction titles by format.

• Mosaicbooks.com: An online "showcase for black literature," this Amazon.com affiliate features a list of top-selling titles on the site.

• Has strong word of mouth behind it, heavily influenced by book-seller recommendations. Radio ads and African-American book clubs can also be major forces. More likely than a mainstream bestseller to be written by a first-time or small-press author, or by someone who started out as a self-published author.

• Fiction tends to stay on a bestseller list for an average of 12 weeks.

• Top-selling paperback fiction titles usually sell in considerably higher volume than top nonfiction titles, often by a ratio of almost two to one; however, bestselling hardcover fiction sales may be closer to bestselling hardcover nonfiction sales (e.g., on Essence's January 2001 bestseller list, the #1 fiction title, E. Lynn Harris's Not a Day G s By, sold in roughly the same quan tities as the #1 non-fiction title, The Debt by Randall Robinson).