The top sellers in spoken-word audio for the first six months of 2009 are a lot like the bestsellers in books (PW, July 13). The Shack, which led the fiction print bestsellers list, also topped the spoken-word audio list, providing a big hit for the independent audio publisher Oasis. With the exception of Oasis, the top 10 bestsellers were dominated by the major book publishers, led by Random House, which had five of the 10 titles, according to Nielsen BookScan.
RH benefited from the Stephenie Meyer factor since its audio division is the publisher of the audio editions of her Twilight titles. Hachette, Meyer's print publisher and audiobook publisher of Meyer's The Host, scored on the audio list with Outliers, which was #4 on the nonfiction list.
Simon & Schuster's audio division had one current book bestseller (Liberty and Tyranny), one that was a major bestseller in the past (The Secret) plus an audio-only title, Good, Better, Blessed, which features 10 of Joel Osteen's sermons delivered at his Lakewood Church.
Top Spoken-Word Audio Titles, January - June
| RANK | TITLE | AUTHOR | PUBLISHER |
| Source: Nielsen BOOKSCAN. DATA DOES NOT INCLUDE SALES FROM WAL-MART, SAM'S, BJ'S, OR TO LIBRARIES. | |||
| 1 | The Shack | William P. Young | Oasis |
| 2 | The Secret (Unabridged) | Rhonda Byrne | Simon & Schuster |
| 3 | The Associate (Unabridged) | John Grisham | Random House |
| 4 | Twilight (Unabridged) | Stephenie Meyer | Random House |
| 5 | Liberty and Tyranny | Mark R. Levin | Simon & Schuster |
| 6 | New Moon (Unabridged) | Stephenie Meyer | Random House |
| 7 | Good, Better, Blessed: Living with Purpose | Joel Osteen | Simon & Schuster |
| 8 | Outliers: The Story of Success (Unabridged) | Malcolm Gladwell | Hachette Book Group |
| 9 | Dreams from My Father | Barack Obama | Random House |
| 10 | Eclipse (Unabridged) | Stephenie Meyer | Random House |
