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Blackbooks
First Time Poster
Username: Blackbooks
Post Number: 1
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2004 - 10:26 am: | 
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There is now a definitive list for the best selling Black Books. It uses various sources of data and the list is very diverse. There are ghetto novels mixed in amongst classics and romance mixed in with literature. The number one book for this week is THE KNOWN WOLRD! Can you believe that?
The website is www.bestblackbooks.com |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 85
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 10:44 am: |
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A "REAL" Black Bestseller List.
OK, I'd admit when I first read this post I thought to myself, "what nerve". Why would someone come here, on a site that publishes a bestsellers list, and post a message promoting a REAL Black Bestseller list. In my mind that is just poor form. This phrasing would be better suited for the bestblackbooks.com site.
That would be like me going to Rawsistaz's discussion board and saying; "Hey Visit AALBC.com the home of REAL book reviews". I'm even smiling as I write that cause it would just not make any sense to do that.
Now that is not to say that I don't welcome the information; it just could have been more tactfully phased. As I hope any regular AALBC.com visitor knows we promote virtually any web site related to black books.
Since reading this post I learned who is responsible for the bestblackbooks.com and I'm familiar with the person. I preface my post with all of this so that you know where I'm coming from...
Fundamentally (and I'm ignoring the business model here), I think this site's bestseller's list is a good idea.
It is important to understand how the list is developed and who it is developed for to determine if it will have any value.
Unless you are simply counting books sold to consumers your list will be baised. Bookscan comes closest to doing this, but I don't believe they count street sales or Walmart sales. So even bookscan is baised against books that would do well on the street (like urban fiction). Besides bookscan figures are not readily available to the public.
There is nothing wrong with bias, as long as you understand it. All bestseller's list have some inherent baises. By definition a Black book seller's is heavily biased -- some more than others. The absence of this bias is what makes the NY Times bestseller's list useless, if you are interested in Black books.
We gone over the inherent baised in Essense's list (weighted based upon the limited geographically and physical inventory of reporting stores).
AALBC.com, while not baised on geography, or physical inventory; is baised toward people who are willing to buy books online. This bias has and will continue to diminish over time, but currently it is still a factor.
Where can bestblackbooks.com fill a void? If I understand the process correctly they are trying to factor in book "quality" into their book rankings. So that book like the Edward P. Jones' "The Known World" will bubble up higher, than it would based upon a list generated solely from sales. In other words it is not a popularity contest.
Another distinquishing factor is that the list will go 100 deep. As any book seller will tell you are the once you get that far down the list, the sales figures for these titles are essentially indistinquishable. Again if sales is not the only factor in computing the list then this is not an issue.
In order for me to find value in the list, I need to understand how the list is commuted so that I can judge how it might be useful to me. Again every list is biased but the worst bias is subjectivity.
I can't help but suspect that there is a subjective component in bestblackbooks methodology. Since their methodology is hidden I will never know. Of course as a quasi-industry professional. I view these things differently than the typical person might.
Since this list is targeted for the reader. The thinking is that typical readers do not care about how the list is calculated they just want a big list that is frequently updated so that they know what books to buy. If this is true, then the bestblackbooks.com list is a good idea.
The list should be a useful tool for the reading public to help sort through the numerous books in print to select one to read. As a result, I will promote the bestblackbooks.com list as addiotional source along with Cushcity.com's, Mosaicbooks.com's, Essences, etc.
What do yall think? How heavily do you use bestsller's lists to determine which book you buy?
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 327
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 11:00 am: |
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Troy:
When I saw that The Known World was at the top of the list I thought, "Mrs. Jones, your son Edward is greatful"
Lists influence my choice of books none in the least. They are interesting to me to note buying trends, but then again I take all with a grain of salt since they are all weighted or prejudicial in some way. I think the Publisher's Weekly list is supposed to be the best--others are based on numbers of books shipped as opposed to actually bought, others leave out Book Clubs, etc. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 87
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 02:03 pm: |
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Chris atre you familiar with Pub Weekly's methodology? (save me the trouble of researching it)
I use bestseller's list to spot trends also. The AALBC.com list, for example, supplied a strong indicator of the urban genre. I say strong not only because the titles dominated our bestsellers list in terms or actual sales figures, but because my impression (purely subjective) was that my "on-line book buyer" bias would skew away from those who would find the titles on our bestsellers interesting.
Which may illustrate two other biases of the AALBC.com bestsellers list:
(1) Books not readily available locally to purchasers
This is somewhat obvious as the vast majority of book purchase are NOT made on-line (despite the savings). Therefore online book purchases are naturally biased toward books not readily available through local off-line purchase.
(2) Books people would not buy in public
This is somewhat more subtle; but the anonymity of an on-line purchase frees people to buy books they would not by or even admit reading in public.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 666
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 02:40 pm: |
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Suddenly "lists" have become the latest fixation in the public sector; they're all over the place. Everybody has come out with a list of the "top" something or other. And the more we find out about these lists, the more room there is for skepticism. Now don't get me wrong, I am a long-time Prince fan and last night I attended his concert which I enjoyed very much because the ol boy still has it - looks fabulous, didn't miss a beat, and can still bring it, but - each ticket-holder passing through the gates of the arena where the concert was being held was given a free CD of his latest Musicology album. He has 4 sold-out concerts in Chicago at an arena which holds about 20,000 people. Chicago is just one stop on his sold-out tour and Prince's ploy of including the cost of his album in the price of the ticket and then handing out his CD to fans attending his concerts is creative marketing at its best. Because of this, his album has soared to the top of Billboard's best-selling album charts. The industry is up in arms about this, and steps are being taken to rectify this practice, but Prince's ranking still stands because the corrective measures were taken after the fact. Sooo this is just one example of how best-selling lists can be manipulated. Another case in point is Forbes magazine recently-released list of the 100 most powerful people in the public eye; the editors came up with this crazy convoluted formula to determine who should make the list. Jenifer Aniston of "Friends" was number 1, topping even the almightly Oprah. Jenifer's husband, Brad Pitt, however, didn't make the list. Yet, William Huang, that little no-singing American idol reject was among the 100 on this roster. Go figure. |
Tee
Regular Poster
Username: Tee
Post Number: 34
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 26, 2004 - 03:58 pm: |
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LOL Cynique...
Troy, to answer your question:"How heavily do you use bestsller's lists to determine which book you buy?"
I don't really use them at all. I think it's interesting to see what's on the list and compare the genres of the books as well as the authors listed, but that's about it. I also like seeing who has read them already and what their thoughts are regarding the content.
The only way a bestseller list really "determines" if I buy a book is if the list shows a book I don't know about. Then, I try to put it on my list to purchase.
-Tee
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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 88
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 12:15 pm: |
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Tee, so in actuality you do use bestseller's lists to discover books to consider for purchase -- so do I. While I may disparage Essesnce's methodology I do look at the list and make sure I'm familiar with every book and author on it.
Cynique, that was an interesting story about Price. Of course he is not unique. Anyone who discovers how lists are created will attempt to exploit them. For example, if someone brought 100 copies of single title on AALBC.com that will guarantee them a top 10 spot*. If it became a trend I would simply remove large single orders from consideration.
Speaking of lists, U.S. and World Report was essentially saved by their top school rankings. The list is so even powerful Ivy league schools spend considerable effort and money scheming on ways to help elevate themselves in this magazine's rankings.
List can be very powerful. Oprah's reading list is another example. How many authors pen books with Oprah in mind? More than you might think. You know how many people will buy a book Oprah picks, so you can understand an author's motivation.
Again lists can be good if you understand how they are generated. Consider the following two lists:
1 - The Coffee Will Make You Black Reading List http://thumperscorner.com/Reading_List.htm A list of books personally selected by Thumper for our reading group.
2 - The AALBC.com's Favorite 100 African American Books of the 20th Century http://books.aalbc.com/thebesttitles.htm
This list was compiled by almost 4,000 people sending me emails over a period of several weeks.
Now both list a purely subjective. However if you are looking for a good book to read I would send you to list #1 first. The intent of that list was to coplie a list of good and thought provoking books. List #2 was essentially a populairty contest. Don't get me wrong, you'll find some great books there as well. But you will find some "surprises" too. List #2 is a better guage on what the general public likes -- which of course is naturally much more broad. The AALBC.com bestseller's list is much more like list #2.
I think thebestblackbooks.com is attempting to become more of a hybrid (I'm speculating here) -- A combination of what is good and what is popular. Which would, in theory, make it less subject to "Prince like" manipulation.
Editor's Note:
*This form of exploitation of the AALBC.com bestseller's list is encouraged (smile). |
Tee
Regular Poster
Username: Tee
Post Number: 38
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2004 - 05:39 pm: |
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Hey Troy, I guess you can say I do, but I was more focused on the word heavily when I replied. I'd also like to add that since I buy a lot of stuff that comes out anyway, there aren't many that pop up on these lists that I don't know about; that's why the distinction on heavily made me answer as I did.
-Tee |
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