The Digital Book World E-Book Best-Seller list tracks e-book sales ranking and price data across six major e-book retailers with the goal of providing the most accurate picture of which e-books are most often purchased by consumers and at what price point. The full methodology is available here.
Amazon Publishing may have just made the splash in book publishing it’s been trying to make since its launch five years ago.
Amazon had four of the top-25 best-selling e-books last week, including the No. 1 best-selling ebook, “The Barkeep” by William Lashner. To date, the highest Amazon Publishing has been on the Digital Book World E-book Best-Seller list is No. 3 — “When I Found You” by Catherine Ryan Hyde had its high-water mark in July 2013; the title is currently sitting at No. 9.
The other two Amazon titles on the list are “Mint Juleps and Justice” by Nancy Naigle (No. 4) and “The Line” by J.D. Horn (No. 11).
Speculation swirled around Amazon retreating from its investment in book publishing after several years of disappointments spending big money acquiring titles by Penny Marshall and Timothy Ferriss that didn’t quite pan out. Then, chatter intensified late last year when high-profile publisher Larry Kirshbaum announced his departure from the company and he was soon replaced with an internal candidate based in Seattle.
This week’s e-book performance could put some of that chatter to rest. Amazon Publishing finally performed well compared to the big publishers, which took almost all the rest of the best-seller spots. Penguin Random House led the charge with ten ebook best-sellers; HarperCollins was next with five; Hachette, like Amazon, had four; Simon & Schuster had one; and there was one self-published ebook best-seller this week.
Meanwhile, the average price of a top-25 best-selling ebook ticked up to $6.09 from $5.36 last week. Three of the four Amazon best-sellers were priced at $4.99; the other, “When I Found You,” was priced at $1.99.
E-book best-sellers from the week ending 2/1:
1. “The Barkeep”, William Lashner, Amazon, $4.99
2. “The Fault in Our Stars”, John Green, Penguin Random House, $7.19
3. “Divergent” (Divergent Series), Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $4.66
4. “Mint Juleps and Justice” (An Adams Grove Novel), Nancy Naigle, Amazon, $4.99
5. “Insurgent” (Divergent Series), Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $6.99
6. “The Rosie Project: A Novel”, Graeme Simsion, Simon & Schuster, $1.99
7. “The Goldfinch”, Donna Tartt, Hachette, $7.50
8. “Allegiant”, Veronica Roth, HarperCollins, $6.99
9. “When I Found You”, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Amazon, $1.99
10. “The Husband’s Secret”, Liane Moriarty, Penguin Random House, $5.99
See the complete list of this week’s top 25 e-book bestsellers at Digital Book World.
Jeremy Greenfield is responsible for managing all editorial content on DigitalBookWorld.com, including the DBW Expert Publishing Blog, the Digital Book Wire and editorial email and social media communications. Prior to joining Digital Book World in October 2011, Jeremy spent three years as a careers editor at FINS.com. Jeremy lives and works in New York City and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.