The Revamped USA Today Bestseller List Isn’t What It Used to Be

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Over the summer, the USA Today bestseller list returned after being on hiatus for about six months. For self-publishing authors, the return was welcome news, as USA Today rankings did not prioritize print book sales over ebook sales the way other publications did, such as the New York Times. However, more than three months in, it’s becoming clear that the list relaunch hasn’t brought back the list in a way that remains valuable to those who have celebrated it most.

From June 21 through October 4, 2023, the number and variety of self-published titles hitting the list is a fraction of what it used to be. In 2022 and prior, it was common for multiple new releases from romance authors to hit the USA Today list during their first week on sale, but that is almost not happening at all in 2023.

Chart labeled USA Today Bestseller List: Number of Ranking Self-Published and Hybrid Published Titles. The chart shows that between August 2021 and November 2022, when the list was under Mary Cadden’s editorial oversight (prior to her layoff), there were routinely close to ten, and as many as fifteen, self- and hybrid published titles on the list. After relaunching the list in June 2023 without Cadden’s oversight, that number averages 2 or 3, with a peak of five.
This graph shows the total number of self-published and hybrid published titles appearing on the USA Today bestseller list, by date. The orange area of the graph is the prior version of the list, edited by Mary Cadden. The blue area of the graph is the relaunched version that is automated.

Moreover, these 2023 numbers are only as high as they are because they include books from hybrid publishers like Forefront, which has distribution with Simon & Schuster and is home to authors like Glenn Beck. For example, for the USA Today bestseller list of Aug. 9, 2023, five titles made the list that aren’t from traditional publishers; three are from Forefront:

  • Haunting Adeline by HD Carlton, published by Hailey Carlton
  • Ride Free by Willie G. Davidson, published by Forefront Books
  • Dark Future by Glenn Beck, published by Forefront Books
  • Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins, published by Lioncrest/Goggins LLC
  • Game Changer by Harold Hamm, published by Forefront Books

Can’t Hurt Me, released in 2018, has been a bestselling book for years now and appears all the time on the USA Today list. Haunting Adeline, a TikTok favorite, was published in 2021 and has been appearing on the list for a while, along with its sequel, Hunting Adeline. It doesn’t hurt that the Spanish edition of Carlton’s book was picked up and published by Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, plus the book has strong print distribution, which is important, as we’ll see in a minute.

At the time of relaunch, USA Today said compilation of the list would be more automated. The list editor, Mary Cadden, was laid off around the time the list went on hiatus, and USA Today had to put in some work behind the scenes, prior to relaunch, so that minimal editorial effort would be required to produce each week’s 150 bestselling titles. And if you browse the list even casually, you’ll see evidence that, indeed, there’s not much or any editorial oversight. 

  • In the July 19, 2023 list, The Housemaid’s Secret ranks very high and as if it hadn’t ever been listed before. But it had been listed on July 12, 2023, with Ingram as the publisher. (Ingram is not a publisher, but a distributor.) And the title continues to be troublesome: On the Sept. 20, 2023 list, the book appears twice, once as published by Mobius/Hachette UK (#97) and once as published by Grand Central (#39), which is an imprint of Hachette in the US.
  • On July 5, 2023, a new Danielle Steel title is listed twice, once at #25 and again at #74 for the large-print edition. (Per USA Today’s stated methodology, sales from all formats and editions should be lumped together, with the title appearing once per list.) 
  • There are also oddities like Alphabet, in spot #144 on Aug. 9, 2023, which lists only Amazon as a seller and isn’t a book at all, but a set of $3.49 flashcards.

The blurbs for each book are pulled from some external source and not written by USA Today; you can tell because, in a nice bit of promotion for USA Today’s competitors, many proclaim in the first sentence “A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.” 

It’s tough to research pre-2023 bestseller lists from USA Today because they were removed from the site. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine does allow you to pull some of the lists for comparison purposes, and we combed through eight of them. The June 26, 2022 list, as seen below, has about a dozen self-published titles on it—mostly romances, with some anthologies in the mix. (In the list below, titles published by a company are owned by or affiliated with the authors; an asterisk denotes a hybrid publisher.)

  • We Shouldn’t by Vi Keeland, published by Vi Keeland
  • Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, published by That’s What She Said
  • Until May by Aurora Rose Reynolds, published by Aurora Rose Reynolds
  • For All My Tomorrows by Debbie Macomber, published by Debbie Macomber, Inc.
  • Mysteries, Midsummer Sun and Murders by RB Marshall, et al., published by Aye Alba Publishing
  • Dirty Daddies Pride 2022 by Maren Smith, et al., published by Red Hot Romance Inc.
  • Gratitude through Hard Times by Chris Schembra, published by 747 Publishing
  • My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey, published by Tessa Bailey
  • Game On by Alinka Rutkowska, et al., published by Leaders Press*
  • HOT Courage by Lynn Raye Harris, published by H.O.T. Publishing, LLC
  • Hidden Waters by Catherine Cowles, published by Catherine Cowles
  • Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover, published by Colleen Hoover

The new iteration of the USA Today bestseller list doesn’t seem to capture all ebook sales—thus giving traditional publishers an edge. For now, the list is noticeably missing ebook sales from Apple, which could account for why self-published work is having a tougher time competing. Indie authors Marie Force and Kathleen Brooks have appeared on the USA Today bestseller list many times over the years but saw their new releases this summer miss the list entirely. Confidential sales information shared with The Hot Sheet shows that their latest titles have enjoyed sales comparable to their pre-2023 releases, so it’s hard to explain why they’d stop making the list. Moreover, Force’s State of Denial, released in August, hit #5 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list for fiction ebooks for the week ending Aug. 26; Brooks’ Forever Connected hit #8 on WSJ’s Aug. 12 list. Authors as experienced and established as Force and Brooks have good instincts about when and where they’ll make a list based on past performance, and the numbers literally don’t add up here. 

Bottom line: Of the possible explanations for why the list has changed, the one that seems most obvious is that self-publishing ebook sales are not being as comprehensively captured as before. While it seems unlikely the automated list has been knowingly calculated to work against self-published authors, it doesn’t help that the new partner of USA Today’s bestseller list is Bookshop and independent bookstores, which of course profit primarily from print sales. And, just as important, even though USA Today is behaving otherwise, editorial oversight remains a critical factor in ensuring the list is tabulated accurately and fairly. Without that, one wonders if it can be a reliable representation of what America is in fact reading.

When asked for comment, a USA Today spokesperson said, “USA TODAY’s Best-selling Booklist aims to be the people’s booklist. While we have yet to incorporate Apple data, our comprehensive list still represents top-selling books, regardless of publisher, genre or format.”

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