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The weekly bestseller lists that are compiled by newspapers like the New York Times are as highly awaited by authors and publishing houses as they are by readers. This is not surprising as a mention on the New York Times bestseller list can guarantee the future sales of not just the book in question but also other books written by the author. A recent example of this was Dan Brown. The tremendous success of “The Da Vinci Code” lifted two of his other books, “Angels and Demons” and “The Digital Fortress” to the top of the bestselling lists as well. Some of the popular authors who make repeat appearances on the weekly list of bestsellers include John Grisham, Michael Crichton and Stephen King.
Entries in a bestsellers list span different kinds of genres. They range from crime fiction to romantic fiction to historical fiction to science fiction to courtroom drama. While some bestseller lists only have one generic fiction list, others divide their list into hardcover and paperback. Still others divide their lists into genres and sub-genres.
Since the fact that a book is on a bestseller list encourages potential readers to pick it up, many books can be found with the words “National Bestseller” or “From the New York times Bestselling Author” printed prominently on the cover. This happens even if the particular book was at the bottom of one list for one week. Thus readers do face the risk of not being able to judge exactly how popular the book was merely from whether it had a presence on a bestseller list or not.
Weekly bestseller lists like the New York Times do not include reprints. Hence to find the bestselling books of all time, one most look elsewhere. According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the bestselling book of all time is the Bible. The best-selling fiction book of all time is either “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell or “Valley of the Dolls” by Jacqueline Susann.
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