Talk:List of best-selling books

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[edit] Bible divinely inspired?

I have never heard any priest mention divine inspiration for any part of the Bible, except possibly Psalms. They are written in the style of historical accounts (whether true or not). Surely Jesus is supposed to be the revelation, not the books about him? EamonnPKeane (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Divine inspiration is definitely the traditional Christian position. That phrase allows considerable wiggle room on what is meant. See [1] for a discussion from a Catholic perspective. You could argue that a Wikipedia should take a consistently secular position, but I think the current approach creates less rancor than the secularist one would. Mark Foskey (talk) 02:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Don Quixote

Something strikes me as seriously off about this work's place on the list. What sources were used to arrive at this conclusion and the 500 million figure? The only references that I could find were this article, sites that quote and/or link to this or the Quixote article (which uses this one as its only source for the bestseller fact) and an obscure site at http://www.bestsellerever.com/ which does not provide any sources of its own. Also, you'd think that Don Quixote's status as the "best selling, non-religious and non-political work of fiction of all time" by such a considerable margin would be a fact a little more commonly known than it is. Now I could be seriously off, but if someone could add a reliable source that cites Don Quixote as the bestselling work of fiction (let alone novel) by far ever printed, it would clear up the confusion. It seems to me that the figure is bunk, so I stand to be corrected.--71.60.131.108 (talk) 05:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll be bold and remove all unsourced entries. I have seen some that were very far off (unsourced 50 million, sourced 15 million, stuff like that), and we have sourced many of them. The list is incomplete anyway, so it is better to only have sourced entries and to add things as we come across them. Having said all that, it is quite obvious that the Don Quixote should be somewhere in the list and that it is one of the bestselling novels of all time. Fram (talk) 08:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Sold" vs. "Distributed"

The reference for "Mein Kampf" states only that a certain number of copies were "distributed" (presumably without charge), not that they were "sold." As a general rule, shouldn't the list be restricted only to books for which there is a specific claim regarding numbers sold? Fragesteller (talk) 02:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a point-of-information question really - how many of the copies of the Bible we have listed were sold, and how many distributed. I'd imagine the situation is similar with the top five of the list, and probably some members lower down is that similar. There is also a somewhat arbitrary distinction in some cases between 'sold' and 'distributed' - that is if a copy of the bible is given to all graduating students at a school, but these were purchased by the school, have they been sold or distributed? --Neo (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
To be accurate, it should probably be renamed to "list of books with most copies in print", which is less fancy, of course... You can never completely avoid this of course (if a book is compulsory reading at school, is it still truly "sold"?). Fram (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A problem with counting "books in print" is that the overwhelming majority of sources list (supposedly) numbers of books sold. Very few list numbers of books in print, and in certain cases those numbers can be very different. I suppose that in most situations it's not a huge proportional difference--perhaps 10% or so?--but we don't really know. Fragesteller (talk) 22:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Da Vinci Code, and reliable sources

I believe it is an error to consider the 57 million sales figure quoted in a two-year-old newspaper article to be more reliable than the 70 million listed on the author's web page. Sales figures quoted in news accounts are notoriously unreliable and out-of-date, often based on little or no research or on very outdated information. That is the main reason such figures are so often completely inconsistent with each other. By contrast, authors and publishers can be expected to have access to the most complete, reliable, and up-to-date sales figures for their own books. I think there is little incentive for them to misrepresent those figures since, in many cases, that could subject them to legal sanctions. I put much more trust in sales figures released by the publisher than in those from any other source. Fragesteller (talk) 03:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)



Other claims regarding Da Vinci Code sales:


60.5 million as of May 2006 http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110008395

80 million copies in print as of January 2008 http://www.booktribes.com/blog/2008/01/25/da-vinci-code-mystery/

over 100 million copies as of November 2006 http://www.amazon.ca/Vinci-Code-Two-Disc-Widescreen-Special/dp/B000I5Y8G4, http://ultimatedvd.org/En/DVDs/Region-1/Details.aspx?ASIN=B00005JOC9

Fragesteller (talk) 21:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

  • "Over 100 million copies" is sales of all books of Dan Brown, isn't it? Katsuya (talk) 11:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


The quote reads "over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold," so it says "book" [singular] as opposed to "books" [plural]. I'm not saying it's correct--to the contrary, I'm sure it's wrong--I'm simply trying to point out how unreliable various reports can be. That's why I put the most confidence in up-to-date figures from the publisher or author--when they are available. In this case it seems to be 80 million in print with 70 million sold. Fragesteller (talk) 14:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that sources are not really consistent, that's why on my article (bestselling authors), I used a minimum and maximum estimate, which gives IMO a better view of reality (if you exclude clearly wrong ones, like the source that said that Perfume had sold 150 million copies...). But to prefer publisher's numbers over those given in independent reliable sources (not blogs, please) runs contrary to our WP:RS guideline, and can be equally unreliable (as evidenced by the Clive Cussler lawsuit). Perhaps we need three columns: minimum estimate, maximum estimate, and publisher's or author's estimate? Fram (talk) 09:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

But what is an independent reliable source? For mass-marketed megasellers, such as those on this list, even Nielsen Bookscan is known to miss a significant proportion of sales due to their reporting criteria. News organization figures seem to be almost uniformly pure guesswork, and not high quality at that. If we can presume that really egregious frauds (such as alleged against Cussler) are now minimized due to the operation of Nielsen and similar organizations, the most reliable current sales figures should come from publishers. The only alternative would be a careful estimate by a true expert or industry insider. I'm not sure that I've ever seen such an estimate for any book, although I suppose some of them exist. Fragesteller (talk) 21:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More work needed

The following books need sourced counts:

Should these be listed in a footnote of some kind? The anecdotal evidence in favor of their placement on the list would justify some mention in all fairness.Brian0324 (talk) 16:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And dozens of others... No footnote listing specific titles (no way to tell which to include or exclude), but a general footnote that this list is incomplete is more than welcome of course. Fram (talk) 09:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Footnote (or hatnote) added now seems to be perfect to me. Fram (talk) 15:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dianetics Claim

The citation for the number of books sold by Scientology is surely questionable?

It cites an article which merely mentions "Scientology claims to have sold 20 million".

Only scanning the verifiability section - this seems to go against many standards. Ought it not to be removed unless a more reliable/substantiated claim can be given? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.152.254 (talk) 20:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Book Author(s) Original language First published Approximate sales Genre
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health L. Ron Hubbard English 1950 20 million[1] Non-fiction/Self-help

See Wikipedia:Verifiability

Ruokasi (talk) 13:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Goosebumps

Why is the Goosebumps series listed twice with two different figures? Can someone who is familiar with this article investigate? Thanks. ukforever (talk) 21:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The lower figure was cited from a source published in 2003 while the higher figure was more recent. The older source should be removed. Ruokasi (talk) 23:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, this was my mistake. I added the new one but did a copy-paste instead of a cut-and-paste of the old one. Thanks for catching this! Fram (talk) 07:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Harry Potter inconsistency

If the 400M figure for sales of all Harry Potter books is correct, then each book on average has sold 57M, or 44M if we assume the novelty books sold as much as the main ones. But no individual book has been listed as selling more than 30M copies. The list doesn't claim to be complete, but should any notice be made of this inconsistency? Mark Foskey (talk) 02:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

One possible approach is to note the number of in-print copies of the U.S. editions, and then estimate the worldwide total from these numbers. Scholastic Publishers report the following: (http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/news/press_08022007_CP.htm)

Harry Potter books in print in the U.S. by title:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - 29 million
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 24 million
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 20 million
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 19 million
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 17 million
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - 17 million
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - 14 million

These add up to 140 million. Multiplying each of these by 2.5 (to get the announced worldwide total of at least 350 million), we could get reasonably good estimates for each of the seven titles. Fragesteller (talk) 05:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)