Oddly the ten years I worked for BGI we as booksellers all knew that the NYT lists were "bogus". Not to put it down (it works for some trending), but because it certainly didn't reflect the reality of the industry. The number 1 most put down category is the biggest seller - romance. There is no getting around that; doesn't matter who disparages the genre or why, it sells bottom line. (I say people need an escape and they want that happy ending.)
Now depending on where a store was located, the percentages changed sure. My last store was across from a Joint Naval Army Reserve Base - Do you have any idea how much science-fiction/fantasy we sold? (Shocked the hell out of the HO when I had to keep ordering more. They finally re-categorized us.) But Romance still beat it by several percentage points. The break down was Romance, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Graphic novels, Fiction (this fell further down the list if you broke out the African-American and classics sections which both sold better then regular fic), Young Adult, Mystery, Children and so on down the list. We had the smallest true crime and history/bio sections I've ever seen, but they just didn't sell as well as say science and religion did. In 10 years, despite the Oprah Club Fiction NEVER got to number 1, it rarely made number 2 and didn't stay long.
Obviously I got way off topic here, oops. But the numbers were how I knew what to keep in stock, so I paid a lot of attention to them. By listening to what my customers wanted we managed to make plan (or close) even with the recession and a good deal of our readers being shipped off to war. I never understood how anyone could talk down to about any category; they are all important to someone and they all deserve credit.
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branchandroot
Got a tad off topic here.
Date: 2010-08-31 08:50 am (UTC)Now depending on where a store was located, the percentages changed sure. My last store was across from a Joint Naval Army Reserve Base - Do you have any idea how much science-fiction/fantasy we sold? (Shocked the hell out of the HO when I had to keep ordering more. They finally re-categorized us.) But Romance still beat it by several percentage points. The break down was Romance, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Graphic novels, Fiction (this fell further down the list if you broke out the African-American and classics sections which both sold better then regular fic), Young Adult, Mystery, Children and so on down the list. We had the smallest true crime and history/bio sections I've ever seen, but they just didn't sell as well as say science and religion did. In 10 years, despite the Oprah Club Fiction NEVER got to number 1, it rarely made number 2 and didn't stay long.
Obviously I got way off topic here, oops. But the numbers were how I knew what to keep in stock, so I paid a lot of attention to them. By listening to what my customers wanted we managed to make plan (or close) even with the recession and a good deal of our readers being shipped off to war. I never understood how anyone could talk down to about any category; they are all important to someone and they all deserve credit.