The April 2024 bestseller lists are now available, free to everyone. Points of interest in April:
- Hidden Gems (traditional + self-pub books, print sales only): The top-selling book is Dark Souls Trilogy Compendium (25th anniversary edition), just released by a German publisher, which is about a video game. Meanwhile, Sourcebooks remains the most well-represented publisher on the list, with eight titles. Since PRH owns a majority stake in Sourcebooks, it might better suit our list mission to exclude them from Hidden Gems along with other large publishers, but we have so far kept them, since so many of the listed authors self-publish and appear on the bestseller lists below.
- Self-published ebook bestsellers: Nicole Fox takes the top two spots with her Egorov Bratva series. Fox dubs herself the “queen of dark mafia romance”; according to her Amazon author profile, she has published more than 300 books. While most ebook bestsellers are romance novels, one nonfiction title stands out: The ChatGPT Millionaire: Making Money Online Has Never Been This Easy by Neil Dagger. It was first published in January 2023 and has a 4.2 average star rating on Amazon.
- Self-published print book bestsellers: This list consistently fills with popular backlist titles, but a handful of 2024 releases appear, including Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain: A Search for an Unconventional Life Abroad, a memoir by Helene Sula; Where’s Molly, a novel by H.D. Carlton (a regular author on the ebook bestseller list); The Dr. Barbara Natural Remedies Encyclopedia by Jacqueline Bridge; and The Midnight Rider Rides Again by Derek Johnson, which is chock full of conspiracy theories (e.g., President Biden is dead and Trump is still president).
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
