5 Myths About Bestseller Lists
What most authors get wrong about hitting the list, and what actually matters instead
Let’s be honest: every author wants to hit the bestseller list. I bet even Cormac McCarthy pumped his fist in the air when he got the call that one of his books had finally become a bestseller.
(Fun fact, before All the Pretty Horses brought him mainstream success, none of McCarthy’s books sold more than 5,000 hardcover copies; Blood Meridian, widely considered his masterpiece, sold fewer than 2,000 copies within the first seven years of its publication.)
For authors, the bestseller list has pretty much become shorthand for success. Commercially, culturally, psychologically, it’s the credential that everyone, even non-readers, recognizes. But as anyone who’s worked in publishing knows, lists don’t work the way most authors think they do. (That said, no one knows exactly how the New York Times list works, since it’s deliberately kept a secret.)
In a recent Author Insider AMA, I spoke with Rory Vaden, a publishing and marketing veteran who’s helped clients land multiple New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. The topic was how books actually sell. Unsurprisingly, our conversation kept circling back to bestseller lists: how they’re constructed, what they actually measure, and why so many smart, experienced authors misunderstand what a list placement really means.
Here are five myths about bestseller lists that feel true, sound authoritative, and often send authors in exactly the wrong direction:
Myth 1: Bestseller lists measure popularity
This is the foundational misunderstanding that everything else builds on. Bestseller lists don’t measure how many people want a book. They measure how fast a book sells within a very specific window.
As Rory emphasized again and again, bestseller lists reward velocity, not breadth. A book that sells 5,000 copies during its launch week can outrank a book that sells 50,000 copies slowly and steadily over months. This is why lists so often feel disconnected from what we actually see out in the world. They aren’t designed to capture long-term demand or cultural presence, only short-term spikes. Hitting a list doesn’t necessarily give a verdict on the book itself; it’s really a snapshot of timing, coordination, and launch mechanics.
Myth 2: Concentrating sales in one place helps your odds
Many authors think that driving as many buyers as possible to a single retailer, or even a single geographic area, will increase their chances of hitting a list. In reality, the opposite can happen.
Rory explained that bestseller lists (especially the New York Times) actively scrutinize sales concentration. When purchases cluster too tightly—by region, retailer, or timing—they can be flagged, discounted, or excluded entirely. This is especially relevant for nonfiction business and self-help books, where bulk orders, speaking-event sales, and corporate purchases are common.
It’s worth mentioning that the Times does this for a very good reason: to keep people from gaming the system. Otherwise, you’d have CEOs buying 100,000 copies of their ghostwritten memoir and then smugly hanging the framed bestseller list in the bathroom of their fourth vacation home.
Unfortunately, these efforts intended to protect the list’s authenticity can end up punishing authors who are legitimately selling large numbers of copies in a single area or at a single event.
Myth 3: Most books hit bestseller lists well after launch
Data time! According to Rory, roughly 89% of nonfiction books that hit major bestseller lists do so in their first week of publication. If it doesn’t happen during week one, then the odds plummet.
An essential caveat: Rory’s stat refers to nonfiction books in the self-help/personal development, business/leadership, and productivity genres. He was not talking about fiction, literary nonfiction, memoir, narrative history or biography. That said, I would bet this tendency still mostly applies to other genres.
Now, let’s talk about why week one matters so much: pre-orders. Every copy sold before publication day is held back, sales-count-wise, until the book actually releases. Then, on that blessed day (always a Tuesday, weirdly), all of those pre-orders are counted at once and bundled into the book’s first official sales week. That boosted number often gives a book its best—and sometimes only—real shot at landing on a bestseller list.
This explains why so much publishing energy is focused on the launch. It’s also why new authors who assume bestseller lists build over time are often blindsided. The truth is that lists don’t reward gradual momentum; they reward concentrated impact. And if that impact isn’t engineered up front, it rarely materializes later.
Myth 4: Hitting a list guarantees sustained sales
“Yay, I hit the list! I’m going to sell ten thousand copies a week!”
Not so fast. Even when authors do hit a list, the effect is often brief. Rory cited numerous campaigns where sales peaked sharply around list week and then fell off just as quickly (a result of the aforementioned pre-order effect). Just making the list rarely builds momentum unless it’s paired with something else—ongoing speaking, institutional partnerships, corporate sales, or a clearly defined, powerful long-tail strategy.
Even so, just hitting the list once means you get to call yourself a bestselling author, stick it on all your books, and maybe finally get a nod from your parents who wanted you to become a lawyer. Take the win.
Myth 5: If you don’t hit a list, something went wrong
Finally, the big one. This may be the most damaging myth of all.
When authors treat bestseller lists as the scorecard, they risk misreading perfectly healthy outcomes as failures.
A book that:
sells steadily for years
supports a speaking or consulting business
finds its way into organizations or classrooms
changes a reader’s life
can be enormously successful without ever touching a list. Rory was clear about this distinction, and I’ll bold it for emphasis: lists are one metric, not the metric.
There are lots of ways to define success. The real question isn’t “Did my book hit a list?” It’s “Did my book do what I needed it to do?”
Final Thoughts
I wish I could tell you that bestseller lists are useless and you can just ignore them. Alas, they can be incredibly helpful to boost a book’s profile, build an author’s career, and bring about numerous other lovely outcomes.
But just as importantly, these lists are narrower, messier, and far more engineered than most authors realize. So, if you ever find yourself spiraling over someone else’s bestseller badge, remember: there’s a lot going on behind that sticker.
Until next time,
Panio Gianopoulos
Editorial Director, Author Insider & The Next Big Idea Club