Here they be.
1. Blood Brothers. Nora Roberts. Orig. Jove (2,247,730)
2. Cross. James Patterson. Rep. Grand Central (1,831,296)
3. Angels Fall. Nora Roberts. Rep. Jove (1,655,329)
4. Judge & Jury. James Patterson & Andrew Gross. Rep. Grand Central (1,653,623)
5. Beach Road. James Patterson & Peter de Jonge. Rep. Grand Central (1,645,810)
6. Honeymoon. James Patterson & Howard Roughan. Rep. Grand Central (1,638,139)
7. Next. Michael Crichton. Rep. Harper (1,600,000)
8. Twelve Sharp. Janet Evanovich. Rep. St. Martin’s (1,500,000)
9. At Risk. Patricia Cornwell. Rep. Berkley (1,445,075)
10. The Collectors. David Baldacci. Rep. Grand Central (1,286,410)
11. Two Little Girls in Blue. Mary Higgins Clark. Rep. Pocket (1,231,500)
12. True Believer. Nicholas Sparks. Rep. Grand Central (1,205,824)
13. Echo Park. Michael Connelly. Rep. Grand Central (1,068,053)
14. At First Sight. Nicholas Sparks. Rep. Grand Central (1,035,993)
15. Dead Watch. John Sandford. Rep. Berkley (1,005,314)
Look at James Patterson go! He’s clearly still well utilizing the practice of getting authorial hopefuls to write his books. Interesting, though, how the title that was Patterson’s alone—Cross—sold ever so slightly more copies. Coincidence? Or do people actually dislike diluted Pattersons?
Nora Roberts is also still pumping out the books and raking in the checks, though this year she only had two titles in the top 15, for a total of almost four million copies. Impressive, sure, but compare to last year’s four titles and nine million copies (not to mention the comparative 4.3 million copies that Eat, Pray, Love sold—further kudos to Elizabeth Gilbert!). Perhaps she’s finally decided to take it easy, publishing only, you know, ten books a year or so. Hey, even cyborgs need a vacation.
And one has to ask (though one wishes she didn’t notice) where is Dan Brown? In 2006 he scaled both the Trade Paperback and Mass Market Paperback lists with over nine million copies of his novels sold; this year not a single one of his books sold even 100,000 copies. The list-dominator has simply vanished! Is his own shocking disappearance part of an elaborate promotional plan for his next novel…or has every single person in America finally read The Da Vinci Code?
I’d be happy with those results if I was working at Grand Central. Over half of the top 15.
No kidding! It really is amazing how these top houses dominate the lists. It doesn’t hurt to own these multiple-book authors, either—even if Grand Central had only James Patterson, they’d still have scored 4 of the 15.