Facts & Figures 2009

Publisher’s Weekly just (re)released the best-selling books from 2009.  Here’s is the list of the top 30 best-selling Adult Fiction novels from last year.

In the comments tell me how many of these titles you read.

1. The Lost Symbol: A Novel. Dan Brown. Doubleday (5,543,643).
2. The Associate: A Novel. John Grisham. Doubleday.
3. The Help. Kathryn Stockett. Putnam/Amy Einhorn (1,104,617).
4. I, Alex Cross. James Patterson. Little, Brown (1,040,976).
5. The Last Song. Nicholas Sparks. Grand Central (1,032,829).
6. Ford Country. John Grisham. Doubleday.
7. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen. Janet Evanovich. St. Martin’s (977,178).
8. The Host: A Novel. Stephenie Meyer. Little, Brown (912,165).
9. Under the Dome. Stephen King. Scribner
10. Pirate Latitudes. Michael Crichton. Harper (855,638).
11. Scarpetta. Patricia Cornwell. Putnam (800,000).
12. U Is for Undertow. Sue Grafton. Putnam (706,154).
13. The Scarpetta Factor. Patricia Cornwell. Putnam (705,000).
14. Shadowland. Alyson Noel. St. Martin’s (609,355).
15. The 8th Confession. James Patterson. Little, Brown (606,097).
16. Arctic Drift. Clive Cussler with Dirk Cussler. Putnam (588,247).
17. South of Broad: A Novel. Pat Conroy. Doubleday (565,156).
18. Run for Your Life. James Patterson. Little, Brown (557,356).
19.True Blue. David Baldacci. Grand Central. (555,296).
20. Swimsuit. James Patterson. Little, Brown (553,138).
21. Pursuit of Honor: A Novel. Vince Flynn. Atria.
22. Alex Cross’s Trial. James Patterson. Little, Brown (517,171).
23. Black Hills. Nora Roberts. Putnam (502,000).
24. Breathless: A Novel. Dean Koontz. Bantam (500,964).
25. Dead and Gone: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel. Charlaine Harris. Ace (500,135).
26. Southern Lights: A Novel. Danielle Steel. Delacorte (497,140).
27. First Family. David Baldacci. Grand Central 447,484).
28. The Gathering Storm: Book 12 of the Wheel of Time. Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Tor (437, 474).
29. The Wrecker. Clive Cussler. Putnam (387,309).
30. Just Take My Heart. Mary Higgins Clark. S&S.

Would you pay more for a signed copy?

How about $500,000?

According to the New York Times, a rare copy of Jane Austin’s Emma signed by the author sold for more than $500,000.  It was published in 1816 and was one of the 12 copies the publisher gave to Austen to give to friends or family.

All joking aside, would you pay an extra $10 for a book if the author signed the inside cover?

Reading Rainbow to return?

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) could see a revamp of an old favorite.  Reading Rainbow, the children’s television program about books, could have a new life…at least according to the Twitter feed of the actor and host of the original series LeVar Burton.

On Twitter over the weekend, Burton had this to say:

You heard it here first… Reading Rainbow 2.0 is in th works! Stay tuned for more info. But, you don’t have to…

This isn’t the first rumored return of The Rainbow.  In 2009 Burton talked about putting together a Reading Rainbow-like show for adults.

The end of publishing?

I came across this video on the Penguin USA’s YouTube page and thought it was worth sharing:

The Making Of A Book Cover

I just caught this pretty fun video from Orbit Books of one of their designers designing the cover art for a Fall 2010/Winter 2011 book cover.  The book Blameless is to be released in September of this year.

The Orbit Blog had this to say about the video:

Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc. And since this is a series look that has already been established for Soulless and Changeless, there weren’t the usual batches and rounds of versions of different designs that happen with standalone or first-in-a-new-series covers. That would be a weeklong video!

And here’s the video:

Interview with Dave Eggers

The seldom interviewed author and publisher Dave Eggers is out promoting his newest novel Zeitoun, and recently sat down with The Guardian.

Zeitoun is being called “narrative non-fiction” because it’s a true story written by a novelist…is this a new genre, or am I out of touch?  The book is about the relief operation following hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and the “war on terror.”

From The Guardian interview:

“It is showing, not telling,” he says. “I just went back to all the things I learned in journalism school. There have been so many polemics about the war on terror, but [individual] stories illustrate these things much better. I’m interested in the human impact of the giant foot of misplaced government. After all, we encounter it every day. Every day. Right now, for instance, I’m trying to help a friend get his deportation delayed.”

The story is about what happened to a Arab-American man (Abdulrahman Zeitoun) in the days after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans where Zeitoun lived.

• Hardcover: 342 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney’s; First Edition, First Printing edition (July 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934781630
• Amazon Link

Grisham writes for kids

Legal-novelist John Grisham sold a two-book series for children to Penguin Young Readers Group, according to Publisher’s Weekly.

The first book is titled Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer and is about a 13-year-old that gets involved in a big murder trial in his town.  It will be released on May 25th here in the U.S.

The second book is scheduled for release sometime in 2011.
KidsLit has always been a money maker, and it’s interesting to see how authors like James Patterson and John Grisham do in this new market.

A Million Little Pen-Names

James Frey was having trouble publishing anything after his “memoir” was exposed as a fraud.  So it looks like he’s turning to a pen-name…or two.  According to the New York Post, James Frey may be the never-in-public author John Twelve Hawks – who is already writing the six-part Sci-Fi series under the pen name Pittacus Lore.

Confused yet?

Fry told Page Six:

“I will neither confirm nor deny that I am John Twelve Hawks, Pittacus Lore, or anyone else … I will say that I have done, and I am continuing to do, projects that will come out anonymously or with invented names on them.”

What’s interesting is that James Patterson, Steven King and Michael Chabon have all been rumored to be Hawks as well.

Generation-Google Goes Paperless?

Regina Brooks wrote an interesting piece for The Huffington Post on the future of the book.  Will e-books take over?  Are we witnessing the death of the paper book?  From the article:

All of the above — successful or not — are pioneers in what is sure to become the norm in YA publishing: interactive, multi-platform stories. Most of today’s teens are online, and that’s where publishing has to go if they want to reach them. Blog and book trailers are well and good, but why not take advantage of the rich storytelling opportunities that multimedia has to offer? It’s going to be very exciting to see how publishers tap into those opportunities, and how it will change the reading experience for today’s teen readers.

Read the entire thing here.

New Palahniuk Coming

Amazon just notified me that a new Chuck Palahniuk is coming out sometime around in early May.  If you asked me three years ago who my favorite author’s are, Palahniuk would have been high on the list, but ever since Rant I’ve had the hardest time finishing his stuff…let alone enjoying it.

I think Palahniuk’s publishers are aware of this problem.  The publisher’s review of Tell-All says that this book is “Marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood.”  And it’s “wild, wicked, it’s bold-faced–it’s vintage Chuck.”

So they are promising readers like me some good old-fashioned Chuck.  We’ll see in May.

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (May 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385526350
• Amazon Link