Prior to the year 2000, the New York Times Book Review Best Seller’s list included only a section for fiction and nonfiction; there were no children’s column, series column, or even two separate sections for hardcover bestsellers and paperback. The idea of a children’s section in the Book Review’s Best Sellers list came from the lack of space for new books on a fiction list dominated by the four Harry Potter books. As a result, a children’s list was created on July 23rd, 2000, solving the space issue- at least, for a while.
In 2004, after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published, many noticed that the children’s section was also starting to get cramped and a section for series books was created, thus enabling only one mention per series.
As of 2012, the New York Times includes 20 categories encompassing many different categories, including distinctions between paperback, hardcover and e-book sales of both fiction and non-fiction titles.
Categories that are not being tracked at this time but have been tracked previously include perennial sellers, required classroom reading, textbooks, reference and test preparation guides, journals, workbooks, calorie counters, shopping guides, comics, crossword puzzles, and self-published books.
Now we come to the point of this article. Why is there no section for young adult and/or teen bestsellers if there are so many other (and seemingly unnecessary) categories?
One possible answer: money.
Many teenagers and young adults don’t read newspapers. A survey at Harvard taken in 2007 concluded that only about 1 in 20 teenagers and 1 in 12 young adults read any form of a newspaper daily. Consequently, newspapers might not want to pay for the time spent researching the statistics and therefore not include a young adult column, but this seems a weak excuse at best.
Do you think that it would be beneficial to young adults, publishers, authors, newspapers, and/or parents if a young adult bestsellers list is included in our newspapers? Share your thoughts in the comment box below!