WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK: Don’t count your New York Times bestsellers before they’re hatched
The week started out so well. Sales figures were coming in very strongly on the first book in Del Rey’s collaboration with the Dabel Brothers comic book publishers: The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle, an original story by Jim Butcher set in his fan-favorite universe starring Harry Dresden. The individual comics sold very well through spring and early summer. When our Del Rey hardcover, which collects the four individual issues into gorgeous four-color hardcover and adds lots of interesting background material on how the story was created, went on sale 10/14 it immediately starting flying out of the stores.
On Wednesday Bookscan released its sales figures, and Welcome to the Jungle appeared at #17 on the hardcover fiction list. (Bookscan is a database that tallies actual sales from bookstores and other outlets nationwide. It doesn’t cover 100% of the marketplace, but it’s the most accurate reference publishers have as to how our books are doing week by week.) My pulse rate went up. Bookscan doesn’t predict the New York Times bestseller list slot by slot, but it’s a very strong indicator for where, in general, a book will land. Welcome to the Jungle seemed a real possibility for the top 15, which is the part of the list that actually appears in print in the Times Sunday book section.
Wednesday evening came around, the Times list was released electronically to publishers, I fell upon it with glad cries … and was dashed to the rocks below. No Jim Butcher, anywhere. Not only was it missing from the top 15, it appeared nowhere in the Extended List. Nada. Zip. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.
So what did I learn this week? [more after the jump]
I learned, much to my shock and dismay, that the New York Times does not currently include graphic novels on the hardcover fiction list.
The concept had never entered my mind. A graphic novel is fiction. Jim Butcher has landed numerous times previously on the Times besteller list. The book outsold, nationally, all but 16 other hardcover fiction titles for the week ending 10/19. Why wouldn’t it have been included?
As a result of my ranting around the office Thursday morning, the head of publicity contacted the Times to find out why Welcome to the Jungle had been dissed. “Well, there’s actually an answer,” she reported. “Even though they have included graphic memoirs and nonfiction like Persepolis and Art Spiegelman books on the list, they have not been tallying graphic novels. HOWEVER: they are planning to start a separate list of graphic novels, if not by the end of this year then very early next year.”
The Times told him the same thing back in August, said Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics, when I called to find out whether he’d had the same problem. DC sold enormous quantities of Alan Moore’s Watchmen over the summer; I hadn’t noticed then that the Times didn’t list it.
DC has even more reason to be aggrieved. Watchmen, aside from selling so many copies in early August that it ended up at #2 on the Bookscan trade paperback bestseller list, has been named by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 Novels of All Time [mark that, New York Times: NOVELS—TOP NOVELS of All Time!!!
It has not always been thus. Those who have been in the comics world for years tell me that Sandman made the list; there might have been others. “Welcome to our world,” people told me cynically as I repeated my tale of woe to anyone who would listen. “Glad you’re on the team.” And so I guess I am on the team, if it’s the team’s job to shake up those in publishing who don’t consider graphic novels equal to other fiction.
Many others before me have spoken eloquently on this topic. I’m very new to the world of graphic novels, but have become an ardent admirer of how a talented artist can become responsible for as much of the storytelling as a writer. Would love to hear others’ opinions on whether graphic novels “deserve” inclusion with other fiction.
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Comments
Interesting that they HAVE included graphic nonfiction -- I had no idea about that.
Why am I not in the least surprised by this?
Hooray for their creating a list for graphic novels, but that doesn't replace the need to include graphic novels in the competition for all fiction.
I wish all my novels could be graphic novels.
My illustrated novel comes out next July, so this info comes very useful. It's a pity graphic novels aren't included when Persepolis (arguably a graphic novel) *is*.