On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway examines three interconnected stories about how books get discovered and sold. He reports on the launch of the UK's first BookTok bestseller list, powered by Nielsen BookScan, and what its romance- and romantasy-heavy lineup reveals about how viral book conversations actually work. He also looks at two striking examples of subscription boxes driving books to the top of the charts — including Goldsboro Books' GSFF box and the fantasy service Fairyloot — and closes with the question of whether the special edition and deluxe edition market may have reached its peak, drawing a sharp parallel with the vinyl singles collecting craze of the 1980s.
Listen to the Podcast: BookTok Bestseller List Launches in the UK
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About the Host
Dan Holloway is a novelist, poet, and spoken word artist. He is the MC of the performance arts show The New Libertines, He competed at the National Poetry Slam final at the Royal Albert Hall. His latest collection, The Transparency of Sutures, is available on Kindle.
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Read the Transcript
Dan Holloway: Hello and welcome to another week of Self-Publishing News. This week the main stories are around what you could call bestseller lists with a twist. We start with a new bestseller list — powered by Nielsen BookScan and produced in conjunction with BookTok and The Bookseller. This is a UK bestseller list. It was tried first in Germany and has now launched in the UK, and at some point I'm sure there will be BookTok bestseller lists in other territories.
What's on this first BookTok bestseller list? The really interesting thing is that a lot of what's on there is not what you might think of as ‘new' bestsellers — these are books that sell in huge amounts, but they aren't really recent titles. It's no surprise that the list is dominated by romance and romantasy: 17 of the top 20 titles are from those two genres. No fewer than six of the top 20 are by Chloe Walsh, the romance author, and another three by Sarah J. Maas, and another three by Rebecca Yarros — the leading lights of the romantasy movement.
That's probably not a surprise, because this is a list that reflects what people are actually talking about on BookTok — what they're sharing viral content about, what there are large conversations around. And it does suggest that these conversations happen around books in popular genres, in genres where lots of readers are on TikTok, and around books that aren't new. There aren't very many titles on the list where someone has clearly taken a title from nowhere and launched it into the stratosphere through BookTok. We keep hearing that happens, but those titles are not well represented here.
Looking a little more deeply at the list, one thing I found quite pleasing — not a surprise, but reassuring — is that the dark academia trend has not disappeared altogether. Being based in Oxford, where I feel like I live dark academia every day, it is great to see The Secret History on the list: the ur-text of all things dark academic.
We've yet to see how this develops over time. One thing I'm really interested to see is whether having a bestseller list like this — even if it's full of already popular, already bestselling titles — will actually drive interest in new books through alternate lists. Lists of books that are not on the BookTok bestseller list. We get this on YouTube all the time — ‘you won't find this on the bestseller lists,' ‘the most disturbing books that nobody else is talking about,' ‘horror I found outside the mainstream.' It may well be that what's on the bestseller list sparks an interest in lots of things that aren't currently on it, and that would be most excellent.
Subscription Boxes Are Driving Bestseller Charts
We also have news from bestseller lists around subscription boxes and special editions. I found two stories about this over the past week, both featuring subscription boxes — those curated collections where you subscribe and receive something selected for you through your letterbox once a month, in the tradition of book-of-the-month or wine-of-the-month clubs.
It seems that subscription boxes have actually been driving bestseller charts. We have two examples from The Bookseller bestseller lists this month. First, the Indie Bookstore bestseller list — a really interesting alternative chart that looks only at what's selling in independent bookstores — shows that a book called Stay for a Spell by Amy Combe has reached the number one position, and the main driver appears to be its inclusion in a subscription package called GSFF. The SFF part refers to the genre; the G stands for Goldsboro, which is a very famous independent bookstore on London's Cecil Court. Cecil Court is a magical little passageway running between Leicester Square tube station and Charing Cross Road toward Covent Garden — tiny, but absolutely jam-packed with bookshops. Goldsboro Books is one I've been to many times, including for book launches by great indie authors. Their subscription box has driven Stay for a Spell to the top of the indie bookstore chart.
But it doesn't stop there. At the end of April, the main UK bestseller charts were topped by Kelly Andrews' book The Graveyard — and the main driver was its inclusion in a subscription service called Fairyloot, which is a massive service that, unsurprisingly given the name and its popularity, specializes in fantasy.
Book subscription services really are pushing sales. This is something that has been talked about in indie circles for a while as an interesting way to introduce readers and capture the attention of existing fans through subscription services and special editions. A lot of subscription services run their own special editions, along the lines of the Folio Society — those beautifully produced editions that have been going out to subscribers for many, many years. And there has been a lot of talk at indie events about the importance of deluxe and special editions as a way of driving sales, keeping fans happy, giving something special that people genuinely want to own because they love the author and they love beautiful objects.
Have Special Editions Peaked?
This has seen a lot of success not only through subscriptions but also on platforms like Kickstarter and Backerkit — Brandon Sanderson and others with massive Kickstarter campaigns often deliver very beautiful special editions. But interestingly, another article I came across suggested these might have peaked, and that people may be beginning to lose some of their enthusiasm for special editions, deluxe editions, limited editions, and subscription editions.
This is a hype cycle we've seen before. I remember it in the '80s with vinyl singles — it became almost a joke that bands would produce ridiculous numbers of editions of the same single with different covers to drive sales and get collectors to buy every variant. It was also a big thing with comic books, which became highly collectible in their special editions. What tends to happen is that what initially starts as something fans genuinely long to have becomes a collectible, then a secondary market develops, the market becomes saturated, and eventually people lose interest.
The article I was reading hinted that something like this might be happening in the book special edition market. If that's the case, we'll probably see a situation where authors with existing massive fan bases can still get their fans to buy special editions — but it becomes the preserve of those who already have those fan bases. Authors who want to use special editions to increase their following or break out may find it increasingly harder to do so, and may need to explore other ways. That feels like a very good note on which to leave it. I look forward very much, as always, to speaking to you at the same time next week. Have a lovely week. Goodbye.
