A Closer Look at The New York Times YA Bestsellers List, Part 2

November 5, 2013 |

* This is part two of a two-part series.

If you haven’t spent time with yesterday’s data, you should do that before diving into today’s post. This is quite a bit shorter, though it’s got far fewer images. Today I wanted to look at the publishers who are represented on the NYT YA List, as well as talk about what the list looks like now that Veronica Roth has jumped to series. I’ve also got a few concluding thoughts and observations I thought were worth sharing at the end.

Publishers Represented on the NYT YA List

I’m always curious whether there’s one publisher which has more books landing on the bestseller list than others. Part of this stems from the idea that perhaps a bigger marketing push is why those books get on the list in the first place and then continued push on titles which maintain their spots over a lengthy period of time. I think, too, it’s interesting to keep this in mind with the rise of very cheap and short-term ebook sales and what impact those may have on books which then appear or stick around on the list. Because it’s not price that gets books on the list; it’s sales numbers.

Because I am human and because counting up the appearance of publishers on a list, I know I made a little bit of a counting misstep. I looked at 47 lists total, which included the extended books — leaving out the list where Veronica Roth has moved over to series — and there should be a total of 705 books to tally. But in my final numbers, I missed a few and ended up with a count of only 701 books. So, I’ve taken the liberty and rounded the biggest numbers by publisher up to the nearest 0 or 5, for simplicity’s sake. It did not impact the results.

I’ve flattened the publishers, folding all of the imprints within their bigger houses. In other words, Tor books and St. Martin’s books are counted under Macmillan. Because Penguin and Random House are still appearing as separate houses, I kept them as separate in my tally.

On the 47 weeks worth of lists, a total of 12 publishers are represented. They break down as follows:

Penguin: 295 books
Harper Collins: 140 books
Simon & Schuster: 70 books
Random House: 60 books
Hachette/Little, Brown: 45 books
Macmillan: 45 books
Quirk: 45 books
Scholastic: 7 books
Disney: 6 books
Bloomsbury: 2 books
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 1 book
Nicole Reed Books: 1 book

As I noted in yesterday’s post, I have no idea why a self-published “new adult” title got onto the NYT List. Human error is the most likely reason, which I’ll talk about in the next section.

It’s interesting to see that, without doubt, Penguin dominates with titles on the bestsellers list. Worth noting: Penguin publishes John Green, Rick Yancey, and Sarah Dessen, all of whom spent some time on the list. Harper publishes Roth’s series, Random House publishes The Book Thief, and Simon & Schuster publishes Perks of Being a Wallflower. Quirk publishes Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

If you’re curious about those smaller numbers: HMH published Dark Triumph which was on the list for one week, and Bloomsbury published Falling Kingdoms and S. J. Maas’s Crown of Midnight.

**Edited to note: In the course of counting, tabulating, etc — my own human error noted that Falling Kingdoms was a Bloomsbury title. It is not. It’s Penguin. I haven’t adjusted the numbers or text, but it shifts another title to the Penguin column and one fewer to the Bloomsbury.

E-Book Originals, The Definition of “Series,” and Defining “YA”

I talked a bit yesterday about e-books and the impact of e-book sales on the appearance of titles on the list. What I didn’t talk about was that a number of e-originals have themselves made the list. These are books which are not in print but only exist in a digital format. This tells us a number of things about the buyers of these books, as well as about what those appearances may say in terms of who or what influences the books that do appear on the list. Or maybe more, who or what influences the titles which last on the list more than a week or two.

The e-book originals — short stories, it should be noted — that have appeared on the list include two of the Cassie Clare co-written titles in the “Bane Chronicles” series: “What Really Happened in Peru” and “The Runaway Queen.”

Kiera Cass’s “The Prince,” which was also an e-original short story, appeared on the list as well.

The reason I wanted to point these out is because, as noted yesterday, books jump to the series list after there are three titles published within that series. So the publication of Allegiant meant that Roth moved from the YA list onto the series list. But interestingly, this hasn’t always been the case with YA books, and it’s been inconsistent.

Taherhi Mafi’s “Shatter Me” series made the series list this year, despite the fact the third book within that series has yet to be published. Rather than have potentially two spots on the YA list, the books were instead grouped onto the series list. And the reason? The publication of an e-original titled “Destroy Me.”

By that theory, Cass’s books should have jumped to the series list with the publication of The Elite, which came after The Selection and “The Prince.” But it didn’t.

There is clearly some inconsistency and human error going on with the definition of series and it does play a role in what is and is not ending up on the YA list. Had Mafi’s books ended up on the YA List, rather than the series list, perhaps there would have been a week or two where women had more spots than men did. But we’ll never know because when the final book in her series does publish, it’ll definitely be on the series list.

Another thing that interests me on the YA List is how the creators define “YA.” As noted previously, two “new adult” authors have made the list: Nicole Reed and Abbi Glines. Both of their books are published for the 17 and older audience, which is spelled out right in the listing about the book on the list. This is an interesting — and frustrating — tactic used to get those books on the list meant for books published for the 12-18 market. Would those books stand a chance on the much more crowded adult list, were they listed as being for those 18 and older instead of those 17 and older? How blurry do we allow the lines between YA and not-YA to get, especially when it comes to something as influential as the bestsellers list? And, if we are going to have something called “new adult” fiction, then can we fairly give them a space on the YA list if it’s something completely all its own?

There is a lot to dig into here when it comes to readership and buyership. Those e-originals aren’t getting their sales through traditional means. I want to know who is buying them. My bet is on teenagers who are devoted fans to the series — which then would tie into my previous comments about teen influence on the list being why those titles appear once or twice and then disappear. I suspect, too, the e-original format severely limits long-term readership and audience reach.

The Post-Roth List

Part of my curiosity about gender and the NYT List came because I knew that Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” series moving over to the series list would open up two spots. Would they allow more women in? Or would more men have the chance to land on the list? What would her two spots — which have been there since week one — do to the average length of stay for male-written vs. female-written change dramatically now that her two books with 47-week histories are gone?

So far, there has only been one list to look at to think about these questions. But the list that came out when her books went to the series list looks . . . remarkably like every other list so far. No surprises. No one new. Nothing out of left field.

On this week 48 list, the stats broke down as such:

9 men total were on the list
12 books written by men were on the list
Within the top ten, 6 males were on the list
Within the top ten, 8 books written by men were on the list.

The average length of stay for these 12 male-written book on the NYT List for week 48 — the first one after Roth’s series shifted — was 32 weeks.

More stats about this list:

3 women total were on the list
3 books written by women were on the list
Within the top ten, 2 females were on the list
Within the top ten, 2 books written by females were on the list.

The average length of stay for these 3 female-written books on the NYT List for week 48? Five Weeks.

Because doing an average of overall length of stay across genders would be silly with only this one week post-Roth to compare, this is a number to still think about. The average length of stay for books on the week 48 list for men is 32. Women, 5. This is going to make a difference the further out we go from here, as I predicted yesterday. It will matter.

The two women who were in the top ten were Marie Lu and Lauren Kate. As you likely know, Marie Lu’s series wraps up in November and she, too, will shift over to the series list. This will leave one — maybe two — spots open for new faces on the list. More than that, it’ll lower the average length of stay for a female-written book on the NYT List even further down.

We’ll see if Lauren Kate’s book will remain on the list. It debuted at #6, so even if Roth’s books remained on the standard list, it’s likely Kate’s title would have made it on the list. But this list reflects the sales the week Kate’s book came out, so it’s worth keeping an eye on whether this one has staying power or if it reflects many of the other books which debut on the list one week and slide off the week or two next. Again, and this is all hypothesis, but perhaps those books represent high sales by the actual teen contingent, as they’re books teens are eager and excited about as soon as they are published (which isn’t to say those books don’t remain popular, but rather, they don’t sustain the same level of sales in the weeks after initial launch).

If you’re curious about publisher representation on the post-Roth list, I’ve got that for you, too:

Penguin: 5 books
Random House: 4 books
Hachette/Little, Brown: 3 books
Simon & Schuster: 1 book
Macmillan: 1 book
Quirk: 1 book

There was not a single book from Harper Collins on the list after Roth’s series moved over.

Other Observations

I thought I’d wrap up all of this data, commentary, and totally speculation with some of the interesting trends and ties that didn’t fit neatly into another category but were still worth thinking about. So this will potentially be a little messy and again, no graphics.

First: what were the total representations by gender on the list? This does include the numbers for the Post-Roth list and does include the extended list.

Males: 17

Females: 33

Of those:

Four male authors had multiple books on the NYT List. These were John Green, James Patterson, Brandon Sanderson, and David Levithan.

Twelve female authors had multiple books on the NYT List. These were Veronica Roth, Maggie Stiefvater, Sarah Dessen, Ruta Sepetys, Marie Lu, Ellen Hopkins, Cassie Clare, Marissa Meyer, Maureen Johnson, Kiera Cass, Rainbow Rowell, and Gayle Forman.

Finally, I’d noted that there’s a trend for books to end up on the list one week then fall off, particularly for female authors. I took some notes on trends I saw in terms of books that didn’t last more than 2 weeks on the top ten list (or extended list) and thought they were worth sharing. This is very raw and it’s quite likely I’ve overlooked something here, but the trends are worth paying attention to.

Female-authored books which lasted only one week on the top ten before either falling off the list completely or falling onto the extended list.

Endless Knight by Kressley Cole: Debuted at #6, fell off entirely the following week.
Battle Magic by Tamora Piece: Debuted at #8, fell off entirely the following week.
If I Stay by Gayle Forman: Debuted on list at #6, fell off but returned later on in the 47 weeks I looked at.
Just One Year by Gayle Forman: Landed on the extended for one week, then disappeared.
Seige and Storm by Leigh Bardugo: Landed on extended for one week, then disappeared.
Of Triton by Anna Banks: Landed on extended for one week, the disappeared.
“The Runaway Queen” by Cassie Clare and Maureen Johnson: Debuted at #8, then disappeared.
Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken: Debuted at #10 the week before Roth’s book moved over, but on the list following Roth’s shift, it fell off.
Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken: Debuted on extended the week before Roth’s book moved over, nut on the week following Roth’s shift, it fell off.
“What Really Happened in Peru” by Cassie Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan: Debuted at #4, then disappeared.
Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers: Debuted at #9, then disappeared.
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys: Debuted on the extended, then disappeared.
Ruining You by Nicole Reed: Debuted at #9, then disappeared.
“The Prince” by Kiera Cass: Debuted #6, then disappeared.
The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson: Debuted #6, then disappeared.
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger: Debuted #9, then disappeared.
Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.

Compare that number of titles to the number of titles written by men which appeared on the list once before disappearing:

Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga: Debuted #2, then disappeared.
Shipbreaker by Paulo Bacigalupi: Debuted on extended, then disappeared.

My counts show that as 17 women have lasted on week before disappearing (I did not count Forman’s If I Stay since it did come back) and only 3 men who have lasted just one week before disappearing.

I should note there was a comment on yesterday’s post that shed some insight into this phenomenon — Maggie Stiefvater pointed out the pre-order factor playing into books landing for a week and then falling off. So there’s that consideration, and that plays into a whole additional series of questions that I’m not even touching on here but would love to see explored.

Where to Go From Here

There are a million avenues of exploration. And I welcome other people to spend the time to look into them. I’d love to know how the series list looks when broken down. I’d love to see how the NYT List stacks up against other measures of “success” — the BookScan numbers, the USA Today list, end-of-year “Best of” lists, and so on and so forth.

I caution anyone considering looking at these things to understand this isn’t easy to parse out or dive into. This is time-consuming stuff, and there are a lot of implications and considerations to have. You can’t “simply” count up the number of men and women who have had a book published within a year to discuss the notion of “dominance” within the field. That’s just counting. There are far bigger things that impact what dominance and acclaim and prestige are.

There is not one single thing that can be pointed to as the problem nor one single thing that can be pointed to as a solution. And to devalue the meaning of The New York Times Bestseller List as simply something “faulty” or “broken” is to make a grandiose statement about the impact it has in sales, marketing, publicity and not to mention word-of-mouth, the general public, and those who write the books. A system may be broken but it doesn’t mean it holds less merit in the eyes of those who give it merit.

I want to see more discussion of this. I want to see more hard numbers — but it takes time. I want to look at (and plan to with some time and energy) other distinctions within the book world, including things such as the distribution of starred reviews against gender. Do we tend to see male-written books as more literary than those written by females? I’d love to see someone tackle questions that popped up, too, about the differences in marketing budgets for male vs. female written titles. And of course, there’s the question of gender of the main character of these novels, too — though I think that is a much tricker, assumptive measure, particularly when you look at it against the NYT List. You’re suggesting something about readership, rather than you are about prestige. There’s nothing wrong about that, and indeed, there’s something really fascinating to dig out there. But it is not in any way the same thing.

Maybe someplace worth starting would be rounding up posts that tackle the issue of gender and YA and doing a meta-analysis. Go look at Lady Business’s posts about gender in the awards lists. Look at the post that came after NPR’s “Best YA Ever” list. Casey Wilson looked at the breakdown of gender on the NYT List prior to it being split into different categories and that’s more than worth a look. Go look at other posts that have explored gender and any sort of recognition (I’ve written a few myself). Might as well also check out Calling Caldecott’s post about gender disparity with the Caldecott at The Horn Book, too.

This stuff exists and has been talked about for a while now. Perhaps a deep exploration of what’s already out there will show where there are holes. It may also allow a bigger appreciation of how much discussion of this topic has happened.

This is not new.

Final Thoughts

Of course, nothing is conclusive here, except that there is in no way a female domination in YA, at least when it comes to what’s perceived as being “the best” in this category. The numbers show again and again men hold more places on the list and have the entire time there has been a separate YA list.

It would be interesting to look at the series list and see if this trend remains or changes. It’d also be interesting to look at other best-of lists and see where gender lines up (I’ve done that on the yearly “best” roundups, and I do plan on doing it again this year when all of those lists appear).

Keeping an eye on the list now that Roth is off is something I want to do because I’ll be curious what happens over the next six months. Will more women appear on the list? Will they last there very long? Or will the list remain essentially the same as it is now, primarily men who have been holding those spots for a very long time. It’d be interesting — though challenging — to look, too, at who has relationships with who on those very lists and what influence that might have on books that appear again and again and those which don’t. A book that gets, say, a John Green blurb or review in a well-respected newspaper have a better chance of getting on the list and lasting there? Will more publishers reduce books in e-format for a very short period to get an author on the list in time for whatever their next release may be?

The List gives such a minuscule view of the YA world at large, and it is revered one of the most, if not THE most, prestigious places to be because of that. But it’s too bad that even that prestige comes with the now-disproven suggestion that women dominate the YA world. They don’t. Men do — at least when it comes to what many see as what “matters” because it’s “best.”

Responses to Yesterday’s Discussion

This section wasn’t in my initial post, but I feel compelled to add it.

I was blown away by the response to yesterday’s post, and I’m grateful for everyone who read it and took the time to think about it and discuss it.

But I want to point you all specifically to a very interesting — and very touchy — conversation that took place on Twitter about gender and the List. This happened between E. Lockhart, Maureen Johnson, Maggie Stiefvater, and John Green. Go read. Then come back.

Let’s pick this apart just a little bit. I don’t want to lead into too much of what it means or suggests because I think it’s fairly evident. But what stands out to me are the following points:

1. Green’s comment that we need to accept this is happening and “begin a conversation about why.”

There is no “beginning” this conversation. It has been on going for a long, long time. But it’s interesting that the moment a male steps in to the gender conversation, it’s a beginning. Just because someone decides to enter a conversation, doesn’t mean it’s the beginning of a conversation.

2. Lockhart’s suggestion that hetero lady librarians buy books because of good looking men.

I have to say it flat out: this actually offended me on a personal level, as a librarian myself. And seeing it from an author who benefits from the skills and work librarians do made it even rough to see. It so devalues the hard work and knowledge and dedication to doing our jobs well. It undermines how much we put into serving our communities and connecting our communities to the books they want to have.

Further, seeing that from an author who has written such amazingly feminist novels is utterly disheartening.

While it was most likely a mis-typed sentiment, I saw it, and I know many, many other librarians saw it. And many were not happy about it. It only further plays into some hugely problematic gender schematics — and as they relate to one’s professional affairs.

3. Green’s suggestion that by not being a top ten selling author in the country he’s not privileged.

Green’s been on the NYT Bestsellers list for 47 weeks, with multiple books. Green is in a very elite, VERY RARE, set of the 1% of YA authors out there. He has never not received some acknowledgment of his work.

This isn’t to say he isn’t talented — CLEARLY he is. Absolutely no one would ever argue that, nor should they. He’s earned it!

But being unable to assess one’s own privilege and reducing it to a comparison of another “bestselling” measure is derailing the bigger point.

4. Green’s offense on behalf of another author who has benefitted from his voice and platform.

Were his platform, fandom, and voice not seen as valuable and profitable and worth pursuing in the YA world, then people wouldn’t clamor for a review from him nor a blurb from him. Green blurbs and reviews very few books — fewer still in a lengthy column in The New York Times — and it would be silly not to see that as beneficial to any author who receives it, ESPECIALLY when that blurb is used again and again in future promotions for the author who received it.

This is a place of privilege. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something to be said about understanding that privilege and value of voice.

This was never, EVER about a single book he wrote a review for. It’s about the value of his voice as it helped propel a woman’s work into a wider audience. As I noted in the comments on yesterday’s post, his blurb on E Lockhart’s forthcoming book is big and bright. There’s no question that is a selling point to the book — so much so that Random House tweeted about it.

And so I revert to the question I keep wondering about: how much does a revered male’s voice help a female’s career? When a man who is seen as someone with power and authority within a field — be it the YA world, the librarianship world, the teaching world, the publishing world, the corporate world, and so on and so on — why is it his word is what can make (or break) a woman’s chances in that same field? What is it that allows him continued authority and respect? And hell, he doesn’t necessarily even need to be revered. It’s likely having a male voice is enough to help a lady out in many, many places.

This isn’t just about John Green. It’s about gender on a much huger scale.

It is clear there is an issue to discuss here, and I am so glad it’s bring discussed.

But it should also be clear that in discussing this issue, there are even messier, sometimes more problematic, knots to untangle.

A Closer Look at The New York Times YA Bestsellers List, Part 1

November 4, 2013 |

*This is part one of a two-part post. Part two will publish tomorrow.

How often do we hear that YA is full of women? That this is a land where there aren’t boys or men? That readers and writers are girls and the implications of what that might mean?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. And I decided it was time to finally sit down and look at one of the most well-known and highly-revered tools that the book world looks to when it comes to status and acclaim: The New York Times Bestsellers List.

Before diving into the data and making some connections among the things I saw, I thought I’d break down the NYT list a little bit. You may or may not remember that last December, the Times decided they were going to change up how they handled their Children’s lists. It used to be that all Children’s books were on one list, thereby having 10 spots for books published among all categories for children. The change that was made ended up splitting middle grade and YA from the general Children’s list, giving them their own lists. This offered more spots for books within those categories, and with the extension of the list, there are 15 books labeled “Bestsellers” each week.

In addition to those lists, there are series lists. When (theoretically) there are three books published within a given series of books, the books within that series are tied together and placed on the series list, rather than offered individual spots within the overall list.

The NYT list tracks sales within a given week and highest sales correlate to placement on the list. For YA (and MG), e-book sales are included in the totals, whereas children’s sales are not. Keep this in mind with the data below because I think that those e-sales play a role in what emerges. Sales numbers are reported from big retailers, online and off, and rather than rehash all of the details of how it works out, it’s worth reading the Wikipedia article to know what does and doesn’t count, as well as the controversies surrounding the counting — there are enough citations here to fill you with all kinds of glee, don’t worry.

I’ve focused all of my number-crunching on only the YA list. There is nothing in here about the MG list and nothing in here about the series list, except where I’ve chosen to make it a relevant point. There is a big one, too. In total, I looked at 47 bestseller lists from the NYT, which is everything from the beginning of their separate list through the week of 11/5/13.

What you should know if you don’t already is that the lists are printed two weeks in advance of the sales. In other words, the list for November 5 covers the sales for the week of October 13 through 20. Knowing this will contextualize much of what you see later on in the data, as books which are published on a certain date that would no doubt make the NYT List don’t do so immediately — there is a two-week lag in the reporting.

The reason that I pulled November 5 as my final counting date for the data is simple: the list for November 12 is one that changes the game, as it’s the week when sales for Veronica Roth’s Allegiant come through, and thus it’s the week when the two spots she’s held on the list for YA are opened up. Her series, now three books, leaps over to the series list instead. More on that in a bit.

Other notes I made in my data collecting I should share: when there were author teams, each of the authors counted. So when Maureen Johnson and Cassie Clare’s book made the NYT list, each of them were tallied for women. The single exception to this came through a personal judgment call you may or may not agree with, but which changes the data and results very little. That exception came for books written by James Patterson and a co-author. I chose not to count the co-author because, as anyone who works with readers will tell you, it’s Patterson who is the author. Readers do not ask for the Maxine Paetro book. They ask for the newest Patterson. Without his name leading the book, there is little doubt in my mind that that book would not make the list. I did also make an exception for the Gabrielle Douglas book, which is authored by her but was written “with” someone else. I did not count the person it was written “with,” since “with” indicates something different than “by.”

As in the past on data posts, there is a LOT to sift through here. I like numbers and correlations among them. I like to take guesses and talk about what I’m seeing and what I think it means. I invite you to do the same thing. As should be noted, I’ve rounded all of my numbers to the nearest whole to make the data easier to read.

You can see my raw data, with some miscellaneous notes-to-self, here.

Individual Gender Representation on the NYT YA List

The first thing I wanted to know was how well men and women were represented on the lists. I’ve always suspected that men outnumbered women on the list, and when I’ve made that claim before, I’ve been told that’s not true.

But actually, it’s startlingly true.

Starting on the very basic level, I counted up the number of different men and the number of different women who occupied a space within the NYT YA List. Because I wanted to cast the widest net possible from the beginning, I looked at not just the top ten list, but the extended list of 15.

On average, there were 7 men on the list and 4 women. Again, these are the number of individuals, so authors who appeared more than once were only counted one time.

Let’s look at this more granularly.

This is a week-by-week comparison of the number of men represented individually on the NYT List in blue against the number of women represented individually on the NYT list in red. Note that except for a few scant weeks in the middle of the chart — that would be around May and June — men appear more frequently on the list.

So how does the top ten fare when it comes to individual gender representation? If we remove the extended list, will women show up more frequently?

Not so much. In fact, the top ten list is even more disappointing to look at if you’re looking for the proof of women dominating YA.

On average, men appeared 5 times on the top ten for YA, while women represented a scant 2. Again, these are the number of individuals, so authors who appeared more than once were only counted on time.

So more granularly:

As should be absolutely clear, there has never been a time women have outnumbered men on the NYT List in the top ten. Never. There have been six weeks where there have been a grand total of four women in the top ten — January 6, February 24, March 31, May 5, May 19, and June 9. For the weeks of May 5 and June 9, we had female coauthors on the top ten (each counted as an individual) and for the weeks of Mach 31 and June 9, Abbi Glines and Nicole Reed — both “new adult” authors whose books were listed for readers 17 and older — also occupied spots on the top ten.

It gets more interesting if you look at how few spots individual women have had on the top ten list. There have been nine weeks when only one woman has had a spot on the top ten. That woman is, of course, Veronica Roth.

The fewest number of men to occupy space on the top ten list is 3, and that has only happened a grand total of five times.

Books and Gender Representation on the NYT YA Bestseller List

The charts above looked at the individuals represented on the lists. So despite an author having more than one book on the list, she or he only counted once.

In addition to looking at the unique frequencies of gender on the list, I decided to do a more thorough count of the books and their authors by gender to get a truer sense of how men and women occupied the list. This time, every book was looked at individually, rather than every author. Multiple books by the same author were counted each time in their respective author’s gender column.

It got even less pretty for women who “dominate” YA.

First, looking at the books with the use of the extended list, here’s what our averages are when it comes to spots that men have on the list and spots that women have on it:

On average, 9 of the books on the list are written by men and 6 are written by women.

Let’s see what this looks like on a week-by-week basis, too.

So about the fact that women dominate YA, take a hard look at this data.

Every single week — except for two — men have outnumbered women on the NYT List. Those were the weeks of March 31 and May 19, 2013. But before you get excited thinking that women had finally “taken over” in their representation on the list, I’ll report to you that they didn’t take over in numbers. Those weeks showed five individual women on the list, which is a number still smaller than the average number of men who appeared on a weekly basis. Women “dominated” as individuals none of the time.

Those five individual women on the list represented a grand total of 8 books on the 15-book extended list on those two weeks.

Eight books.

Five women.

Fifteen spots.

For two weeks out of forty-seven total.

Just sit with that for a few minutes.

There are, of course, some variables that made these two weeks of “lady domination” happen. For the week of March 31, we see the debut of Eleanor and Park, nearly a month after its release. But the sales for the book that week most certainly reflect the John Green review in The New York Times — the review was published March 10, which is the week that the March 31 NYT List covers here. Without devaluing the book and its merits, it’s fascinating to see that the book ended up on the List nearly a month after publishing but immediately following the glowing review it received in the same publication by a male who himself regularly occupies 3 or 4 spots on the list. It would be hard to argue that without the Green review that book would have landed on the list that week.

That week also includes Nicole Reed’s “new adult” book (which I argue should not have been on this list at all because of its 17+ age recommendation and the fact it’s self-published — there is a whole other list for that). There were also two spots on the extended list held by Cassie Clare; the sales for this week were one week prior to the paperback release of Clockwork Prince, and I have some theories which I’ll get to in a bit.

For the week of May 19, I note that Abbi Glines was on the list (who, again, I argue should not have been since her book was for a 17+ audience). There are also dual appearances by Kiera Cass, Marie Lu, Veronica Roth, and an appearance by Sarah Dessen for What Happened to Goodbye.

Because I looked at the data of individuals limited to the top ten list, I decided to do the same thing with the books. So the following charts look at gender representation in the top ten by books. Same deal: multiple books by the same author were gender coded multiple times.

On average, there were 7 books written by men in the top ten of the NYT List and 3 by women.

More granularly, so you can see what it looks like on a week-by-week basis:

Books written by women have never once — never once — had at least half of the spaces on the top ten list. They’ve had a few weeks occupying four spaces but never have they had five books in the top ten slots in the 47 weeks that the YA List has existed.

A couple of other factoids to include at this juncture: there have only been five weeks where a woman held the number one spot on the New York Times List for YA. Five. They were held by Veronica Roth (for four weeks — three of which were in mid-July, on the 14th, 21st and 28th, which would reflect a bump in sales immediately following the release of the first stills of the movie and the fourth week, September 15, likely reflects sales following the release of the film’s trailer) and Kiera Cass for The Elite, which stayed for one week only. Cass’s novel debuted at #1 on the May 12 list, which reflects the sales for the week her book was available for purchase.

Again, in 47 weeks, there have only been two women to see the top spot. They only held it for a combined five weeks.

Average Length of Stay on the NYT List

This data is much trickier, it’s limited to the top ten list, and it doesn’t really say anything. But I wanted to look at it for comparison with the next data set after this one.

Because the list is only 47 weeks long, we only have 47 weeks to compare average length of stay against. And it moves backwards, of course: so the books which were on the list during week one had an average stay of one week. Those which were on the list during week 23 which had been there since week 1 now averaged 23 weeks. And so on.

I wanted to look at gender against the average stay of books on the list. But it wasn’t really too telling of anything. Part of that is because the top ten list had a higher number of male authors on the list, though only a handful were around the entire 47 weeks (many jumped from the top ten list to the extended list then back again). And really, comparing 8 books by men’s average stay on the list against 2 books by Veronica Roth which have been on the list the entire time didn’t show a whole lot.

But it will tell us something soon.

For men, the average length of stay on the NYT YA List was 18 weeks.
For women, it was 17 weeks.

Keep those numbers in your head in conjunction with everything above.

Trends Within the NYT YA List

Tomorrow’s post will look at some more data, including data from the first NYT List that will publish after Veronica Roth’s series is off the YA list and onto the series list. It’ll also look at publishers represented on the list and other interesting variables. But before ending this post, I thought it would be worth talking a little bit about some of the interesting trends I noticed.

I noted above more than once that lists reflect the sales two weeks prior to their publication date. That’s something to keep in mind when you notice things like drastic e-book sales for certain titles or authors. Because the YA list does reflect e-book sales, I have been curious to know what impact that makes on who is on the list and who is getting those books on the list.

Ever notice huge slashes in e-book prices? I haven’t kept track of them this year, and can’t make any certain connections, but it seems to me there’s something to be said about the appearance of some books on the list which might reflect those drastic cost reductions. Publishers can set the price of a Kindle or Nook Book at $1.99, drum up huge sales, get the book on the list, and then it’s a bestseller. Doing that prior to a paperback release or a release of the next book within a series would help that title appear on the list. A lot of times those books appear for that week and then they fall off again when the price returns to something higher.

It is not price that gets books on the list; it’s the number of sales.

Keep that in the back of your mind when the list for November 20 comes out, as last week a number of well-known YA names had their e-book prices dropped to $1.99 or even $1.40. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rainbow Rowell appear on the list twice, for example, since both of her books were dropped to a mere $1.40 for Kindle. I’d even not be surprised to see one or both of them in the top ten lists (I should note here that on the first post-Veronica Roth list, which I’ll talk about tomorrow, Eleanor and Park is on the extended).

Many books will appear for a week or two on the list — usually on the list reflecting the sales of the week their new book published — and then they will slide off. This happens in more drastic numbers for female authors than male authors, which seems like it’s reflected in the data above. And when you look at the titles that do this, it’s hard not to think about why that might be. Is there a reason Kiera Cass’s The Elite debuted at #1, lasted a second week at #6, moved to the extended, and then disappeared? It seems to me perhaps this sort of quick on and off reflects the true audience purchasing the book, and the true audience for this one? Teenagers. They get very excited about the release of the next book in a series, buy it during release week or immediately after, and then the sales fall off for any number of reasons. Books that are perennially on the NYT List definitely reflect teen sales, too, but I suspect part of why they maintain their positions is continued purchasing and recommendation from adult readers as “good YA.” Even if it’s only 55% of adults purchasing YA (which has been spun to sound like it’s adults being huge purchasers of YA books when it’s only slightly more than half of purchases are made by adults), it’s likely that those adults recommended books to other adults are doing what adults who recommend books tend to do: repeat and recommend the books they read from the bestsellers list because that bestsellers list suggests a “good book.” A bestseller is a bestseller for a reason, as the logic goes.

They’re safe.

Books written by women are much more likely to see one week or two weeks on the list and then fall off than those by men. It’s depressing to think about what that might say about the value of women in YA fiction, the reflection of their work as having significant merit, and so on and so forth. But one thing is for certain: the assertion that “women dominate” is completely false, at least when it comes to Bestsellerdom.

Men do.