[the book struggle] stalking the best-seller list part II

Three weeks ago, I shared plans to compile lists of the top-selling children’s books.

I’m doing it for market research - to see if there are any commonalities on illustration styles, book sizes, titles, fonts, etc. that I can harness to increase my chances of success.

People who say “don’t judge a book by its cover” are delusional, and set up to fail.

I mean, I want the same benefit of the doubt, and I’m an optimist; but I also need to deal with reality.

Ultimately, the win is just scratching my itch and putting my work out there…

But why not get some extra boosts?

THANK YOU to one of my readers, Thomas Lin (who’s building a community and company around rock-climbing; please follow!). In my last book-related issue, I asked if anybody could help me organize the data in an actionable manner, and he gave me a format that I loved and ran with.

I’m making the data available to you all, here. I hope this inspires you in the data-gathering journey you might be on; and, if you notice anything I haven’t noticed, I’d love your eyes and feedback!

If you like the pleasing blue colors, thank Thomas for that. I am not that generous nor color-coordinated lol!

The data is organized by:

1. The top-selling books of all time. Which ones are timeless classics that continue to pay dividends and reach people?

2. 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020. I wanted to see what the preferences were, during and coming out of COVID.

3. Age ranges, rankings, covers, titles, publishers, illustrators, and sizes. Are certain publishers picking more winners than not? Are there ideal page numbers?

Here is what my team and I are noticing, combined with the style I like:

• Animals win. That’s good for me, since I have a dog and badger in mine =)

• Minimal illustration and copy are better. The clutter overwhelms me. Much like emails and articles that have fat blobs of paragraphs (which is why i’m liberal with paragraphs).

• I love wordplay. See “Knight Owl” and “Odder.”

  

could you help me out?

Can you tell me which illustrations and titles you like, without weighing the content?

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