After nearly three years of tracking the top 25 best-selling ebooks each week, Digital Book World is retiring our popular Ebook Best-Seller List. Past editions can still be found here, spanning August 2012 through April 2015. But because making sense of the limited sales data that freely exists about the ebook market remains a top priority for authors...
Best-Selling Ebook Prices Rise Before HarperCollins Restores Agency
This week’s Ebook Best-Seller List captures the week ending April 11th, so it doesn’t reflect the return to agency pricing HarperCollins put into effect starting this Tuesday, the 14th. So the modest rise in the average price of a best-seller, from $6.66 last week to $6.98, isn’t a function of that switch. But since all six HarperCollins...
Prices Climb on Ebook Best-Seller List as Hawkins Holds No. 1
The average price of a best-seller inches up to $6.66 from $6.14 last week on the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller List as higher-priced titles crowd the upper rankings. Five of the top ten cost more than $10. And speaking of tens, this week marks the tenth that The Girl on the Train, the best-selling thriller...
Seasoned Authors Dominate Ebook Best-Seller List as Average Price Rises
All four of the new titles to hit this week’s Ebook Best-Seller List are by best-selling authors, like Harlan Coben and John Green, whose previous books have found broad appeal among readers. That’s hardly surprising for a best-seller list, of course, and it’s something we’ve seen before. In the cases of John Green’s 2009 novel Paper Towns and Diana...
Prices Swoon on Ebook Best-Seller List as New and Familiar Players Mingle
It’s not always easy to tell what makes an ebook successful. Film adaptations certainly help, as does the name-recognition of a popular author with a large fan base. Those are two probable reasons why the entirety of Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy is back on this week’s list, just as the Insurgent movie hits theaters, and James Patterson’s NYPD...
‘Girl on the Train’ Hits Seventh Week as No. 1 Best-Selling Ebook
Even though a new title by best-selling author Erik Larson is close on its heels, The Girl on the Train refuses to be unseated from the No. 1 spot it’s held on the Ebook Best-Seller List for seven weeks in a row. As we’ve noted before, the title’s success comes despite being unconnected with a movie...
‘Train’ Ride Continues as Hawkins Novel Keeps Leading Ebook Best-Seller List
Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train chugs into its sixth week as the No. 1 best-selling ebook, an accomplishment that’s rather noteworthy for bucking the trend of top titles driven by hot movie releases. One trend the novel’s success fits right into, though, is the clear dominance its publisher Penguin Random House has enjoyed on the Ebook...
Penguin Random House Still Sweeping Ebook Best-Seller List
Even as we’ve looked for signs of renewed agency ebook pricing impacting best-selling ebooks (and found few), and remarked on the continued power of media tie-ins to shape the rankings, the real story is a rather old one: the ongoing dominance of the world’s largest trade publisher, Penguin Random House. During the last holiday season, Penguin Random...
‘The Girl on the Train’ Extends Lead as Best-Selling Ebook Prices Creep up
Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train is settling into its fourth week at the top of the Ebook Best-Seller List, seemingly immune from the game of musical chairs other best-selling titles appear to be playing. Many of those, including Wild, Gone Girl, American Sniper, Unbroken, and the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy—all three titles of which hit the top 25 for the first time...
Average Price Rises on Ebook Best-Seller List, but Few Signs of Agency Pricing
The number of titles priced above $10 on this week’s Ebook Best-Seller List doubles since last week, from four to eight, sending the average price of a best-seller shooting up to $8.05, from $6.89. While four of those eight titles are from publishers that have regained the right from Amazon to set their own ebook prices, only...
Harper Lee and E L James Command Ebook Best-Seller List
As we speculated might happen, both of the titles in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy that debuted last week on the Ebook Best-Seller List last week have made mighty leaps up the rankings ahead of the film adaptation’s release this Valentine’s Day. Fifty Shades of Grey is now the No. 4 title and Fifty Shades Freed No. 9, while Paula Hawkins’s The...
‘Fifty Shades’ Returns to Ebook Best-Seller List Ahead of Film Release
With a hotly anticipated film adaptation of the E L James best-seller ready to hit theaters this Valentine’s Day, two titles in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy return to the Ebook Best-Seller List. The eponymous first book of the series as well as its third installment, Fifty Shades Freed, slide into the No. 18 and No. 21 spots, respectively....
‘American Sniper’ Hits Ebook Best-Seller List Twice
The well-known power of media tie-ins to drive sales of best-selling ebooks was on ample display in the second half of last year, and the phenomenon shows no signs of diminishing in the first few weeks of 2015. American Sniper lands not one but two places on this week’s Ebook Best-Seller List as the film adaptation starring Bradley Cooper plays in...
Few Surprises on the Best-Seller List as Agency Ebook Pricing Takes Hold
The return of agency ebook pricing hasn't registered on the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller List yet; 'The Girl on the Train' jumps sixteen spots.
‘Unbroken’ Holds No. 1 Spot on Ebook Best-Seller List as Average Price Rises
Laura Hillenbrand's book remains atop the Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller List as the Angelina Jolie-directed movie stays up at the box office.
Low Prices Dominate First Ebook Best-Seller List of 2015
Just one title within the top 25 on the first Digital Book World Ebook Best-Seller List of the year costs more than $10.
Penguin Random House Ebooks Dominate Best-Seller List During Holiday Shopping Season
Laura Hillenbrand's 'Unbroken' leads Penguin Random House's sweep of the Ebook Best-Seller List this holiday season.
Average Price Stays Low as Ebooks in Series Crowd Best-Seller List
Last week saw a precipitous drop in the average price of a best-selling ebook, from $7.21 to $5.68. Holiday discounting seemed a likely contributor, since the change coincided with the week leading up to Black Friday. This week’s best-seller list appears to confirm those suspicions, with the average price slipping by a few cents more, to...
Familiar Titles Return, Average Price Drops on Ebook Best-Seller List
In a sign that the holiday shopping season was already getting underway the week before Black Friday, familiar best-sellers made renewed appearances on the Ebook Best-Seller List as the average price of a best-selling ebook dipped considerably, from $7.21 to $5.68. Some of 2014’s heavy-hitters, like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and...
Slight Gains for Hachette Ebooks on Best-Seller List After Amazon Accord
It’s probably too early expect any major difference for Hachette’s titles on the Ebook Best-Seller List just one week after the publisher settled its dispute with Amazon. In any case, no sweeping change is to be found, with only slim gains for Hachette ebooks in the nine days after the companies agreed to “immediately resume normal trading” on November 13. Hachette’s top...
New Ebooks by Veteran Authors Storm Best-Seller List
This week sees a number of changes on the ebook best-seller list, beginning right at the very top. Stephen King’s new novel Revival knocks John Grisham’s Gray Mountain down a peg to No. 2, after the latter spent two weeks at No. 1. Grisham and King are among the best-known and best-selling authors in the world, and although nearly half of...
Self-Published Ebooks Keep Ahead on Best-Seller List
Self-published authors keep up their recent strong showing on this week’s ebook best-seller list, with three of them moving into the top ten. All three titles in Deborah Bladon’s Ruin trilogy appear on this week’s list, a fifth of which consists of self-published titles. The other two include The Arrangement 17 by H.M. Ward, which makes its debut this week, and...
Grisham Unseats Flynn on Ebook Best-Seller List
John Grisham’s Gray Mountain hits the top of the Ebook Best-Seller List this week, swapping places with Gone Girl, the Gillian Flynn novel that held strong at No 1. for the past six weeks. Two other Gillian Flynn titles remain within the top 25, though: Dark Places and Sharp Objects. And it’s all good news anyway for Penguin Random House,...
Self-Published Titles Rally on Ebook Best-Seller List
Recent weeks saw the brief ascent of higher-priced titles from traditional publishers on the Ebook Best-Seller List, a phenomenon that reversed course last week and is replaced this one by the resurgence of less expensive, self-published titles. Penelope Ward’s self-published Stepbrother Dearest remains squarely within the top ten, jumping two places into the No. 4 position this week. And Deborah...
‘Gone Girl’ Still Leads Ebook Best-Seller List as Average Price Plummets
What a difference a week makes. Not for Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which enters its fifth week at the top of the Ebook Best-Seller List, but for the average price of a best-selling ebook, which drops from $8.39 last week down to $6.91, after several weeks when higher-priced ebooks had performed remarkably well. This week...
Higher-Priced Ebooks Climb the Best-Seller List
On last week’s list, seven titles with price tags higher than $10 contributed to pushing the average price of a best-selling ebook up to $7.74. That figure now jumps to $8.39, as more than a third of this week’s top-25 titles cost more than $10. Three of the nine titles in that category are making...
Hachette Titles, Average Price Inch Upward on Ebook Best-Seller List
The past several weeks have not seen particularly strong showings for Hachette on the Ebook Best-Seller List, partly because of the publisher’s battle with Amazon and partly because of the steep competition from competitors, especially Penguin Random House. But this week Hachette titles are making a modest comeback, led by James Patterson’s Burn, which debuts...
‘Gone Girl’ Holds Steady Atop Ebook Best-Seller List as Media Tie-Ins Predominate
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn hangs onto its spot at the top of this week’s Ebook Best-Seller List ahead of the hotly anticipated film adaptation due out in theaters this Friday. Last week we noted that twelve, or just under half, of the top-25 best-selling ebooks were affiliated with a movie or TV adaptation. That share rises...
Media Tie-Ins Power Half the Week’s Best-Selling Ebooks
We’ve written before about the impact of popular TV and film productions on the Ebook Best-Seller List, and the power of media tie-ins to drive ebook sales is no secret inside the publishing industry. This week that phenomenon is especially noticeable even amid significant fluctuation in the rankings. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl slides into the No. 1 spot with the...
Penguin Random House Has Three-Quarters of Ebook Best-Sellers This Week
In its first full year of operation, Penguin Random House has shown that size does matter. The $4 billion publishing house — by far the largest in the world — is churning out the ebook best-sellers at far faster clip than any other publisher. This week, PRH has 17 of the 25 books on...
Lee Child Unseats ‘If I Stay’ as Higher-Priced Ebooks Rise on Best-Seller List
Lee Child’s new Jack Reacher thriller Personal nudges Gayle Forman’s If I Stay out of the No. 1 spot that the young-adult title has held for the past five weeks on the ebook best-seller list. That’s only a coup in a limited sense, though, as both books are published by Penguin Random House, which has roundly bested its competitors when it comes to best-selling...
Penguin Random House Continues Ownership of Best-Seller List; Some Indies Eschew Kindle Unlimited
The top seven ebook best-sellers this week are from Penguin Random House, the world’s largest publisher and its largest producer of best-selling books. Nearly half of the top-25 best-selling ebooks are Penguin Random House. Gayle Forman’s If I Stay held the No. 1 spot for a fifth straight week after it dethroned John Green’s...
Penguin Random House Sweeps Best-Seller List as ‘If I Stay’ Keeps Ahead
With Labor Day just around the corner, it’s probably safe to say that this summer belonged to Penguin Random House, at least when it comes to the season’s best-selling ebooks. Just after John Green’s hit The Fault in Our Stars ended its twelve-week run at the top of the Ebook Best-Seller List (and to be fair, it’s...
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