Last week, we noted that Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs had become Amazon's top-selling book of 2011, a feat all the more notable due to the fact that the book was not released until late October.
But that ranking only encompassed print sales, and with digital books now representing a majority of book sales at Amazon, rankings including Kindle e-book sales need to be included in order to generate a more complete picture of overall book sales.
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Amazon has done just that today, releasing its list of best-selling books of 2011, and Isaacson's Steve Jobs once again topped the list.
“After the year of recommending books to our customers, it’s always fun to see what books really resonated with them,” said Chris Schluep, Senior Editor of Books, Amazon.com. “We chose ‘Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats. And we’re really excited that Kindle Direct Publishing authors have taken two of the top spots this year for book sales overall.”
The top 10 best-selling books overall are:
1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
2. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey
3. “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard
4. “The Mill River Recluse” by Darcie Chan
5. “In the Garden of the Beasts” by Erik Larson
6. “A Dance with Dragons” by George R.R. Martin
7. “The Paris Wife” by Paula McLain
8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham
9. “The Abbey” by Chris Culver
10. “Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle)” by Christopher Paolini
Amazon's list includes all books that were published as first editions in 2011 and includes only paid sales. Highlighting the growing influence of digital books and their impact on publishing, Amazon notes that both The Mill River Recluse (#4) and The Abbey (#9) are independently-published books made available only via Kindle e-book.
Top Rated Comments
It's just another required object to buy. If they cracked the spine, I wonder how they would react to this excerpt, I'm surprised it made it in:
Transcript of William Shatner and Steve Jobs conversation:
INT Hotel bar-Santa Clara NIGHT
SJ: Excuse me, are you William Shatner?
WS: (drunk) no autographs!
SJ: I don’t want your autograph.
WS: Then why the ******* are you dressed like Spock, then, hmm?
SJ: It’s a turtleneck.
WS: And you forgot your badge in mommy’s basement?
SJ: Actually I was going to ask you how you deal with... the fanboys.
WS: (screaming) You mean the goddamn TREKKIES?
SJ: Um, yeah.
WS: Well (looks around in an animated fashion), you can’t let them sneak up on you. Make sure you strike first or they’ll ask you about the green chick in episode 32...I mean, yes, of course I did, but that paint really burned...is that what you wanted to know?
SJ: Um, actually, I have a different problem, I make products and people get a little too...attached to them. They can’t seem to put them in perspective.
WS: Well...do they live with their parents till they’re 30?
SJ: Maybe.
WS: It’s complicated, you can’t tell them how much you hate them, you know....it’s like kicking puppies. I mean it’s great fun, but you’ll always feel bad about it later. That’s where the drinking comes in.
SJ: Yeah, I don’t really drink.
<time passes...>
WS: (incredulous) You have the liver of a 25 year old? That’s simply the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard.
SJ: I almost died.
WS: 4 Jameson 25s please, how about you Wozbo?
SJ: I’m the other one.
WS: Yeah, yeah, hey bartender get my friend a drink, he invented the remote control.
How do they 'choose' a Top 10 best seller? :confused:
Does Amazon decide what a best seller is, or is it based on actual sales figures? The quote makes you think otherwise.
otherwise, yeah - fascinating.
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have you read many books prior to this?
it's terribly written. the author never finds a voice of his own, he simply presents his data in a very bland and direct manner.
he seemingly did absolutely no fact checking, and didn't bother to intertwine himself in the industry which he was to be writing about. its written from a complete outsiders perspective as if he was just presenting a slideshow. the timeline was strange, he was repetitive and inaccurate and a lot of the information he presented was never expanded on enough that someone who doesn't know the company or the industry would left saying "huh?"
to put it bluntly, it sucked. choosing isaacson was the biggest mistake of Steve's legacy.
Basically Isaacson didn't have the technical knowledge (iPhoto is Apple's competitor to Photoshop? Really?) to go deeply into any interesting technical issues, and he didn't have the intelligence to make any interesting breakthroughs into Steve's personality. The only good parts of the book were the new quotes from Steve himself.
100% agree with this. Read anything by Neil Strauss and you will agree. This book was a snoozer