Biography best seller 2012 fiction

Parsing through the top 10 bestsellers of 2012 in a number of major publishing categories reads like a usual suspects list, as a small number of authors filled a large number of spots.

The result: 2012’s bestseller lists showed relatively little variety, and the phenomenon wasn’t just limited to any one category.

The category that saw one of the few increases in unit sales in 2012 was also one of the most monopolized—the top 10 romance bestsellers had only four different authors (E.L.

James, Sylvia Day, Nora Roberts, and Nicholas Sparks) from only three different publishers (Vintage, Berkley, and Grand Central). Overall, the romance category saw a hefty 35% increase in print units sold in 2012, compared to 2011, at outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan.

And while that number would be impressive in its own right, it’s even more astounding given the fact that only one other adult categ