A nd to be honest, before getting into the publishing business, I also believed that making the NYT list meant permanent fame and fortune. But now I know better -- and I also know there are other metrics that matter, especially in the long run.

What is the criteria for a book to make it onto a bestseller list? A lot of people think it’s the cumulative number of books sold since the release date, or that there is some minimum sales threshold to meet, but simply put, a book gets on a list based on the number of copies sold that week compared to other books. As an example, if Book A sells only 50 copies in a week, it will make the Number One spot on the list as long as its closest competitor sells fewer than 50 copies that week. Don’t get me wrong - getting on a bestseller list is terrific, full stop. It gives you bragging rights for life.

Why do different lists rank books differently if it’s based on straight sales numbers per week ? Aha. The question that causes grey hairs and much disgruntlement in the publishing industry. The New York Times, the Globe and Mail, USA Today, the Independent Bookstore Association, and many other entities publish lists. But every list has criteria other than straight sales numbers. Maybe their reporting week goes from Saturday to Friday, or Monday to Sunday. Shifting that window could change results. Some lists will count sales numbers from specific bookstores (“reporting stores”) and ignore others. The Indie Bookstore list only surveys independent bookstores and not Barnes and Noble (or Indigo/Chapters in Canada). Some lists may exclude online sales or sales figures from Target and Costco — even though Costco moves more books than any other retailer. Or at least they did before downsizing their books section. And even for the same list, lack of consistency can be a mystery. There have been times when Book A sold more copies than Book B, yet Book B ranked higher on the New York Times  list than Book A. 

This is why the author gave such a wry reply to the interviewer. Getting on the NY Times bestseller list doesn’t mean you’ve just sold a million copies and you’re now set for life. It just means that for the week your book ranked on the list, it was selling better than all the other titles ranked below it. Which is wonderful. Weeks and weeks on a bestseller list is even more wonderful.

However, there is another metric that matters a lot for those of us who don’t spend weeks and weeks on the bestseller list -- or any list at all. We want to earn out. We want all our books to sell steadily, admittedly in smaller quantities, long after the release date. We want our books to earn out so that we can start collecting additional royalties. We want what’s called the ‘long tail’ of book sales, so called because of the way the line chart looks: a big bump of a dinosaur at the beginning of a book release, easing down to a long tail representing lower sales volumes, but a tail that keeps going and going.

For most of us mere mortal authors, the hope is that with each new book we write, a new reader discovers the book and then decides to read some of our older books (the “backlist”), thus extending the tails. Steady income from the backlist is the gift that keeps giving.

*NOTE:  I wrote a short version of this article for my March 2026 newsletter and decided to expand upon that information for a blog post. Also, to learn what ‘earn out’ means, read this blog: How Do  Authors Get Paid?