Thriller novelist Freida McFadden has claimed five spots (10 percent) of the Hidden Gems list this month, including the number-one spot with her recently released The Housemaid Is Watching. (She also has five spots on the self-published ebook list.) While her titles regularly appear on our lists, she seems to be getting a nice sales boost from the recent New York Times profile that ran on June 22. McFadden’s print books are published by Sourcebooks; she retains her ebook rights.
Other highlights from July:
- Cookbook author Matthew Bounds, known as Your Barefoot Neighbor on social media, hit the number-one spot on the self-published print book list, plus the number-two spot on Hidden Gems, with Keep It Simple Y’All, a self-published collection of easy dinner recipes. You may know him for a chicken cobbler recipe that went viral on TikTok last year that makes good use of Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay biscuit mix. (Yes, you should go save the recipe.) He also offered an earlier cookbook, Come Fix You a Plate, that was available only by direct order via Found. Bounds’ social media accounts include warnings for his fans not to buy fake editions by fraudulent sellers on Amazon.
- War Room Books, the imprint founded by Steve Bannon, has released the bestselling title Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them) by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec. It has appeared on major bestseller lists as well as the number-three spot on Hidden Gems. It carries blurbs from J.D. Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, and Michael T. Flynn.
- A political book ranking much lower on the self-published print bestseller list is Project 2025: Remaking American Governance by Andy S. Rhoden. Unfortunately, it appears to be an opportunistic effort—perhaps an AI-generated effort—to make money specifically off liberal interest in a summary and critique of Project 2025. It has low ratings. (If you seek this kind of content, we recommend an identifiable human with credentials; we read Tangle.)
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.
