E-Books Outsell Print For Majority Of Titles On USA Today Bestseller List

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USA Today is reporting a post-holiday e-book “surge,” with 32 of the top 50 titles on its most recent list selling more copies in digital format than in print, including all top ten titles. I broke down the lists to see which books sold more copies in each format.

The list, for January 2 through 8, is here and the paper attributes the surge to e-readers received as gifts. For the previous week, from December 26 through January 1, e-books were the most popular format for 42 of the top 50 titles. Both figures are “higher than any other week last year,” USA Today says.

SEE ALSO: USAToday.com Revamps Books Coverage, Bestseller List

Unlike the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) and Wall Street Journal (NSDQ: NWS), which break out e-book sales (as well as children’s books, nonfiction, etc.) into separate bestseller lists, USA Today publishes a single list that includes all categories and lumps hardcover, paperback and e-books together. If a title is available in all three of those formats, its sales in all three are combined to calculate its rank. The entry for each title mentions which format it sold the most copies in that week. The WSJ and NYT do not provide that information.
I went through the list—here are the ones that sold more copies as e-books than as print books, along with their rank on the list:
E>P
1. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) (children’s/young adult)
2. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) (children’s/YA)
3. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) (children’s/YA)
4. Private: #1 Suspect, James Patterson (Hachette) (fiction)
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson (Random House) (fiction)
6. The Help, Kathryn Stockett (Penguin) (fiction)
7. The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson (Random House) (fiction)
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