Bestsellers '06

Call it the Da Vinci coda. Without Dan Brown's novel eating up a bestseller spot week after week as it did in the past two years, more books found their way onto the 2006 weekly charts than ever before—495 new titles, compared with the previous record of 452 set in 2005. That was the good news; the bad news is that close to 70% of those new bestsellers stayed on the charts for four weeks or less and more than 20% of them had only one-week runs. With title output in the U.S. approaching 200,000 copies per annum, cracking the lists was easier in '06, but staying was harder.

Publishing bestsellers can be pricey: coordinating laydowns and publicity to inspire a measurable demand isn't cheap; high acquisition costs, money spent on jackets and paper, a hefty advertising and marketing budget just add to the bill. That's why the international conglomerates dominate the national bestseller lists. In fact, in 2006, the big five—Random House, Penguin USA, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and the Hachette Book Group—controlled more than 83% of the hardcover bestseller real estate and about 78% of the paperback. Add five more publishers on the hardcover side (see chart below) and the figure went up to 95% of possible bestseller slots controlled by just 10 publishing entities. In paperback, four more publishers take the 78% figure to 93%.

Even though the 495 books that made it onto PW's four weekly charts represent less than 1% of the total annual title output, these are the ones that garner the most ink and attention. Is there an author who doesn't fantasize about seeing his or her name on a list of top sellers?

The ultimate prize is the #1 spot, and 58 books published last year grabbed it. In hardcover fiction, every one of the 23 books that hit #1 did so in its first week in the stores (and 12 of those books kept the top spot for just one week). Twenty-three is a record number—and that's because no single novel dominated the charts. The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003, led the fiction charts for 25 weeks that year and for 31 weeks in 2004. In both 2005 and 2006, it was #1 for just six weeks. And that was the longest run at the top for any novel last year.

In nonfiction it was a different story. Marley & Me lingered at #1 for 23 weeks, leaving fewer opportunities for other titles. There were 15 other titles that made it to #1, but here, too, time at the top was short—eight books had one-week runs and four others lasted for two weeks. The Da Vinci Code movie tie-in was the only mass market with double-digit tenure (12 weeks) in the #1 spot; 12 more books hit the top spot, four of them for only one week.

The trade paperback list had two books with double-digit runs. Elie Wiesel's memoir Night (first published in English in 1960) was on the list for 41 weeks, with 12 weeks in the top spot, thanks to Oprah. The Memory Keeper's Daughter was #1 for 22 weeks. Five more titles made it to #1, including the trade paper movie tie-in of The Da Vinci Code;it had an eight-week run.

There were fewer debut novels on the 2006 list than in the three previous years. Of the six, Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar enjoyed the longest run, a total of 12 weeks. Second was Diane Setterfield's gothic mystery The Thirteenth Tale; it boasts seven weeks on the charts with two in the top spot.

List Makers

Veteran fiction players had a field day on the charts. Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Danielle Steel, Robert B. Parker, Mary Higgins Clark and Nicholas Sparks all had two or more books on the hardcover charts in the course of the year, adding up to a total of 165 weeks, more than 21% of all available slots. Contemporary fiction (including romance), mysteries and thrillers accounted for the majority of fiction bestsellers.

Kudos also to several chart regulars who landed in the #1 spot for the first time. Jodi Picoult's 13th novel, The Tenth Circle, went straight to #1 in its first week out; Jonathan Kellerman's 20th book, Gone, was his first top-of-the-chart seller; Laurell K. Hamilton's Danse Macabre, #14 in her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, began at the top, demonstrating the popularity of her paranormal romances.

There were also a few literary writers whose latest books proved to be worth the wait. Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day— his first novel since Mason & Dixon in 1997—hit the list at #11. Fans waited a decade for Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons; his previous bestseller, Cold Mountain, has more than four million copies in print.

Politics and religion did mix on the nonfiction charts. It was no surprise that the majority of the political bestsellers offered heavy criticism of President Bush and the war in Iraq. On the pre-election October 9 hardcover list, two of the top four books on the chart—Bob Woodward's State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III and Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina—made some serious accusations. Well-known names from the political arena did well on the charts with books espousing personal, national and international agendas. Former President Jimmy Carter topped the list at the beginning of 2006 with Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, and by the end of the year, his latest bestseller, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, looks to be his most controversial book ever. John Dean, Madeleine Albright, Elizabeth Edwards and Barack Obama all enjoyed time on the charts. Obama's The Audacity of Hope was the bestselling nonfiction title during the fast-paced holiday season.

Diversity defined the many religion titles on PW's charts; there were at least 20 books on topics religious and inspirational, a record. Titles like The God Delusion, The Language of God, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Jesus Papers, The Gospel of Judasand Misquoting Jesus were just a few of the books turning in impressive performances on the general bestseller lists.

Going the Distance

While the trade paperback list has been home to the longest-running bestsellers for many years, the 2006 group outperformed previous years. There were 15 books on the weekly charts for 15 or more weeks, more than the 12 on the other three lists combined. An additional 17 books had double-digit tenures on the charts; in all, about 62% of the trade paperback bestsellers were on the charts for 10 or more weeks. In mass market, only 6% of the bestsellers had double-digit runs; the hardcover fiction number is about 7%; for nonfiction, it is 16%.

Leaders of the Pack

Random House, Penguin and Simon & Schuster were the big winners on the hardcover track, gaining 5.9%, 2.1% and 3.1%, respectively. Big Random's gains were even more remarkable because Doubleday's Da Vinci bonanza was no longer a factor (after a 51-week run on the 2005 charts, Dan Brown's book was on the list for 21 weeks in 2006). Knopf was the strongest division, placing 21 books on last year's list, with 101 weeks in total, compared to 11 books in 2005 with 65 weeks on the list. Knopf also had two books with long stays—Joan Didion's TheYear of Magical Thinking (12 weeks) and Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck (19 weeks in 2006 and still on the list). Crown was also a significant contributor to the higher share. In 2005, it had three books and six weeks on the list; in 2006, Crown boasted nine books and 45 weeks on the charts.

Penguin's gains were helped by the strong performance of two of its divisions, Putnam and Dutton. In both 2006 and 2005, Putnam had the most hardcover books on the charts, 26 titles for each year; the difference was that the 2006 group had a total of 114 weeks on the list, compared to the 85 weeks for the 2005 players. And only two of the 26 bestsellers were on the charts for a single week. Dutton had nine 2006 bestsellers and 32 weeks on the charts; in 2005, it had six books and 18 weeks. Simon & Schuster's share increase was achieved with the help of four divisions—Scribner, Atria, Free Press and Simon & Schuster. In 2006, those four racked up 41 books and 206 weeks, compared with 32 books and 129 weeks in 2005.

Hachette Book Group's 7.5% loss can be attributed to two titles—Your Best Life Now and Blink. Those two books had a combined 2005 run of 88 weeks, vs. 11 weeks in 2006; that alone contributed to an almost 6% drop. HarperCollins's The Purpose Driven Life went from 47 weeks in 2005 to 13 in 2006. Regan Books also did not contribute much to the tally—three bestsellers with four weeks in 2006, compared to eight books and 39 weeks in 2005. Also, in 2005 the HarperBusiness division had three books and 25 weeks on the charts; nothing in 2006. HarperResource and HarperCollins also took fewer weeks on the list. Even the excellent performance by Morrow—17 bestsellers in 2006 and 131 weeks on the list vs. 12 in 2005 with 59 weeks—couldn't offset HC's 2.9% loss.

In paperback, however, HarperCollins gained the most, an increase of 3.2%. Avon's 2006 performance contributed to the gain—19 bestsellers and 59 weeks, compared with 12 books and 38 weeks in 2005. And Harper San Francisco had a big book in 2006—Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, which racked up 22 weeks.

That's some of the story about just 1% of the business. As we've said in previous years, it's the other 99% that is thr lifeblood of the book business.

Bestsellers by Corporation
How the large companies fared on PW's '06 charts

Ranking the Houses
How the Divisions and Imprints Competed in 2006

PW's 2006 Longest-Running Bestsellers

At The Top

Bestseller Landings