Nelson Still Dominates the CBA Bestsellers List

One of the most important metrics we track is the number of titles we have on the bestseller lists. For example, in the last twelve months, we have had eight books on the New York Times lists. By my count, this is four times as many as our nearest competitor. It is the most in our company’s history. It demonstrates that we are doing a better job penetrating the general market than ever before.

However, an arguably more important list is the CBA Marketplaces’ Top 50 Christian Books. This measures our performance against our competitors in our core market channel. (Just for the record, CBA still accounts for approximately 44% of our publishing revenue.)

On Monday, I received the May list. It is sent to ECPA voting members (our trade association) a month in advance. Here’s how we stack up against our competitors. The first column of numbers represents the number of titles (out of 50) each publisher has on the May bestseller list. The second column of numbers represents the average number of titles each publisher has had on the list in the last 12 months.

The thing that gives me great confidence in our publishing program is that our bestsellers are consistently coming from multiple authors and multiple imprints. Unlike some of our competitors, our success is not dependent on just one or two big books or series. For example, on the May list, we had eight authors represented: John Eldredge, Max Lucado, John Maxwell, Charles Stanley, Hank Hanegraaff, Barbara Johnson, Ted Dekker, and Catherine McCafferty. Six publishing imprints were represented: Nelson Books, Nelson Business, W Publishing Group, WestBow, Countryman, and Tommy Nelson. This is something worth celebrating!