According to the BBC, book sales have been on the rise since the peak of the pandemic. With the seemingly continuous lockdowns, more people have time to read books. This begs the question, how are best sellers chosen?

What Makes a Book a Best Seller?

According to Self Publishing, in order to make it onto the New York Times Best Sellers List, an author must sell between 5,000-10,000 from a variety of sellers within one week. This means that a book must make a grand total of close to 10,000 in sales through dozens of sellers before it can be considered for the Best Sellers List. 

Pacific Standard states, “Over 100,000 new titles are published each year, but fewer than 500 crack the Times‘ tally.” 

Clearly, this is a highly elite list. 

How Does the Times Keep Up with These Titles?

As stated above, there is an astonishing number of books published each year, so how is it possible for one paper to keep up with so many?

In September of 2020, during a high volume of book sales, the staff of the Best Sellers List addressed this very issue. 

The Times Best Sellers List comes out every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Rain or shine around the world, this list is a constant. The staff works around the clock to monitor sales data, booksellers and write book “blurbs” as they refer to them. They use what are called ISBN numbers to keep track of every book and receive sales data for these books from booksellers big and small around the world. 

The staff states, “By noon on Mondays, we have received roughly 75 percent of the data and have some idea of what the best bets are going to be for new titles. But, as in sports, it’s not over until the final buzzer, which will come the following afternoon.”

The Best Sellers List is time sensitive and constantly changing with buying trends of consumers. The staff also states that their list is based purely off of sales, not content of the books. 

“…This means we are ranking the books and writing their descriptions without having read the works,” they state. “You might ask how we can choose which books are good if we aren’t first reading all of them. We don’t. Unlike the staff members of the Book Review, from whom we work independently, we aren’t making value judgments. We go off the sales data.”

This is a very unique way of rating books and unlike most listicles for books. 

It takes an incredible amount of work and effort for an author to have a best seller and the New York Times is commonly considered to be the most prestigious book list because it isn’t based on opinion, but purely sales from consumers. 

So, What’s on the List Now?

There are 11 different categories that are ranked and published weekly. As of April 10, 2022, these are the current categories and their contents.

Combined Print and E-Book Fiction:

1. WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens
2. RUN, ROSE, RUN by Dolly Parton and James Patterson
3. THE RECOVERY AGENT by Janet Evanovich
4. IT ENDS WITH US by Colleen Hoover
5. VERITY by Colleen Hoover

Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction:

1. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel van der Kolk
2. ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER by William P. Barr
3. THE 1619 PROJECT edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein
4. THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE by Erik Larson
5. CRYING IN H MART by Michelle Zauner

Hardcover Fiction

1. RUN, ROSE, RUN by Dolly Parton and James Patterson
2. THE RECOVERY AGENT by Janet Evanovich
3. THE PARIS APARTMENT by Lucy Foley
4. FRENCH BRAID by Anne Tyler
5. THE MATCH by Harlan Coben

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER by William P. Barr
2. THE 1619 PROJECT edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein
3. LESSONS FROM THE EDGE by Marie Yovanovitch
4. THE STORYTELLER by Dave Grohl
5. CRYING IN H MART by Michelle Zauner

Paperback Trade Fiction

1. WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens
2. IT ENDS WITH US by Colleen Hoover
3. VERITY by Colleen Hoover
4. THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. UGLY LOVE by Colleen Hoover

Paperback Nonfiction

1. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE by Bessel van der Kolk
2. THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE by Erik Larson
3. EDUCATED by Tara Westover
4. ALL ABOUT LOVE by Bell Hooks
5. BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous

1. ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear
2. LIFE FORCE by Tony Robbins and Peter H. Diamandis with Robert Hariri
3. ATLAS OF THE HEART by Brené Brown
4. THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX AND THE HORSE by Charlie Mackesy
5. THE WOK by J. Kenji López-Alt

Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover

1. WONDER by R.J. Palacio
2. TROUBLEMAKER by John Cho
3. REFUGEE by Alan Gratz
4. THE LAST CUENTISTA by Donna Barba Higuera
5. DAUGHTER OF THE DEEP by Rick Riordan

Children’s Picture Books

1. HOW TO CATCH THE EASTER BUNNY by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton
2. ANTIRACIST BABY by Ibram X. Kendi. Illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
3. PETE THE CAT: BIG EASTER ADVENTURE by James Dean and Kimberly Dean
4. I’M NOT SCARED, YOU’RE SCARED by Seth Meyers. Illustrated by Rob Sayegh
5. PRETTY PERFECT KITTY-CORN by Shannon Hale. Illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Children’s Series

1. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney
2. HARRY POTTER by J.K. Rowling
3. A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Holly Jackson
4. PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS by Rick Riordan
5. WINGS OF FIRE by Tui T. Sutherland

Young Adult Hardcover

1. ONE OF US IS LYING by Karen M. McManus
2. GALLANT by V.E. Schwab
3. YOU’VE REACHED SAM by Dustin Thao
4. THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas
5. LOVELESS by Alice Oseman

In Conclusion:

You can read the weekly Times Best Sellers List here. If you’re looking for a new book to pick up over the weekend or between assignments, check out the Best Sellers List for your possible next favorite book!