The New Bestseller List You Need to Know About

On the day I wrote this post — June 10, 2024 — James Clear’s Atomic Habits had been on the New York Times “Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous” bestseller list for 236 weeks.

That’s 4.5 years of consistent sales. Great for James Clear, but bad for everyone else.

Having one or two titles dominate the bestseller list is:

Unhelpful for readers who are looking for something new

Discouraging for authors who dream of showing up there someday

Annoying for publishing insiders like me who want their books and authors to have a chance of hitting that same list.

Something you may not realize about book publishing is that most books sell for a long time.

According to data from Bookscan — which tracks sales in real time — 70% of books being sold right now are at least a year old.

That’s great for authors and readers in the end (your book lasts, yay!) but also explains why James Clear has been on the New York Times list since before the pandemic.

To solve this problem, Publishers Marketplace has worked with Bookscan to create what they’re calling “The New List.”

To appear on this true bestseller list (i.e., based on real sales and not “curated” like the…