Books and eBooks: USA Today's Online Book Section and Bestsellers List Get a Makeover

From a PaidContent Article by Laura Hazard-Owen:

Today marks the official launch of USA Today’s new books site, books.usatoday.com. The most noticeable changes are to its bestseller list, which now has a more colorful interface and for the first time, features buy links. It’s another way that USA Today’s bestseller list is trying to set itself apart from those of the New York Times whose book bestseller lists are the most influential in the business. While USA Today’s list doesn’t have the same prestige, it is important in part because of its large circulation.

USA Today has been tracking bestselling e-books for a year longer than the New York Times (since February 2010, compared to February 2011 for the NYT), and takes a more transparent approach to its lists. [Our emphasis] While the NYT doesn’t reveal the sales outlets whose data it uses for its lists, USA Today publicly lists its sources.

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USA Today’s new book site aims to make it easier to discover and buy books. Each title on the new digital bestseller list—and all of the other 14,000 titles included on the list since 1993—is accompanied by an image of its cover, “which makes browsing the titles more like being in a bookstore or library,” Anthony DeBarros, USA Today’s senior database editor, told us. The titles are clickable and each has a detail page that tells you how long the book has been on the list, and includes the paper’s previous coverage of that book and reader reviews pulled over from Goodreads.

Read the Complete Report

Direct to Bestseller List
Searchable by title, author, description

Direct to USA Today Books Site

Filed under: Data Files, Libraries, Publishing, Resources