Listed! Times! Bestselling! (now with proof)

Posted on by scott

Well, that headline pretty much says it all.

This morning (it’s Thursday here) my editor emailed me to say that Specials has appeared at number 6 on the New York Times chapterbook bestseller list!

I believe the word is . . . w00t.

Thanks to all of you who told your friends and librarians, made your parents drive you to the store, and forced some poor bookstore employee open a box early (you know who you are). You have been counted! Thanks to Rodrigo Corral for his ace cover designs. Thanks to S&S for being an excellent publisher.

Oh yeah, and thanks to J.K. Rowling, who single-handedly forced the Times to create a set of children’s bestseller lists. Because, like, they got sick of Harry Potter books getting all up in Salman Rushdie’s and James Patterson’s face. (Hah! YA rules!)

That little story reminds me to mention that all bestseller lists are mysterious and kind of fake. No one really knows what books are selling everywhere in the country (much less the world), so it’s all done by polling a hundred or so bookstores. And every list picks stores that tend to sell the kind of books that they like. And of course putting things into categories is always fraught; like, Specials is a chapter book and the latest Potter is a series book? Huh? The USA Today list doesn’t even bother with categories, just goes by raw Bookscan data, which misses non-bookstores like Target and K-Mart.

But you know what? I’ll take it. Because the NY Times is the list everyone’s HEARD OF! And that’s all that really matters, this big fat banner of credibility:

What’s REALLY annoying is that it’s not online yet, because the Times has this crazy system where they don’t publish lists until a fortnight after the end of the week in question. (Why? Why?) This news came from my editor (who must have some sort of Secret Publisher Decoder Ring) leaving me half wondering if a Terribly Embarrassing Mistake has been made.

But probably not, so once more . . . w00t!

Also, Midnighters fans will note that Specials is my thirteenth novel! Trideca-liscious!

(By the way, this little surprise is STILL not the big news I’ve been talking about. Soon, baby, soon.)

UPDATE: I have proof! (Thanks, Shana.)

82 thoughts on “Listed! Times! Bestselling! (now with proof)”

  2. CONGRATULATIONS! We publishers get the list emailed to us every Wednesday night, so I’m sure it’s not a mistake. 😉 Woo hoo!

  4. Yes, Holly. It’s insanely wondrous to visit the club.* Though I’m still not fully accepting the reality of this.

    Thanks Jen and Jason! (And thanks for the explanation, Jen. Gee, publishers get all the cool secret data. Like, do you know where Santa Claus lives?)

    *That club where all the books in a certain series with the word “Spiderwick” in the title friggin’ hang out for MONTHS.

  6. Scott,

    That’s so insanely awesome, Scott. My dumb town book stores weren’t going to have the book in for like a week after it was released, so (and I hope this marks me in the ‘true fan’ cattergory) I paid nearly $12 of shipping on Amazon.com to get it in two days. But you know what? It was COMPLETELY worth the money. The ending was brilliant, you know. I was sitting there reading (forgot to eat all day, I was so excited) and thinking ‘how in Hell is he going to end this?’ and you DID IT. It was amazing.

    Anyway, talking of grouping books together I was wondering if you had any book suggestions for me. I figure, who better to ask than my favorite author? I’ve read your wondrous authoress wife’s books which are brilliant as well. (When does the next one come out, Justine???) But if there are any books out there like yours I have yet to find them. Science fiction suggestions? Fantasy? Young Adult? Anything NOT Gossip Girl esque? I’d love to have your thoughts.

    Again, congrats. You deserve it.

    -Hannah

  7. lol, i paid 35 dollars in shipping for a midnighters which wasnt the one in the united states.

  8. Hey Hannah,

    Thanks for the praise! My favourite YAs of late:

    Fantasy
    Holly Black’s Tithe and Valiant
    Elizabeth Knox Dreamhunter
    Laura Whitcomb A Certain Slant of Light
    Cassandra Clare City of Bones (Though you’ll have to wait till early next year. SO worth the wait. It’s one of my faves fantasy books in ages.)
    Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books (though they’re sold as adult)

    Not fantasy or sf, but still fabulous
    Jaclyn Moriarty’s books
    Barry Lyga’s The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl (Though sadly it’s not out till October)

    Hope that helps. And so you don’t bust your wallet—Tithe, A Certain Light and the Temeraire books are available in paperback.

  9. SCOTT CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!! that is sooo amazing, in the times again! only this time its about you, and your books, not about you and your fans, which is really important! I think this is really great, and i predict a great spike in the purchase of the uglies series in the next couple of months! lol. well i think this totally rocks scott! you rock and deserve this! yay for you!

  10. So all my book reccomendations have worked. I’ve gotten five people to buy your books so far. And about five mmore to read your books.

  11. Oh, Scott, that’s just….bubbly!

    It’s wonderful and amazing and fabulous and incredible and and so so so well-earned! I’m so thrilled for you! Congratulations!!!!!!

    I’ve been waiting for this, ever since I heard Specials would be out in hardcover. Ever since I read Uglies and saw what a wonderful thing you had on your hands. Great job!

  15. wow, scott. congratulations! can i still claim you as a friend or will the nyt disallow bogus friendship claims based entirely on status? they should have a policy. i do.

  16. Yes, wonderful news, & very much deserved! I feel the thirteenth-novel bit is ESPECIALLY appropriate. I have been holding off so that I can read all three of the novels in one big gulp, it is what I am going to do in June….

  19. Way to go, man! I was kind of impressed to see the Scott Westerfeld section in the local Borders at the Park Mall in Tucson – historically it’s been as likely that there would be nothing there as that there would be something there, but today there was a copy of Uglies, a copy of Pretties, and two very noticable gaps where other books had been snatched up. I had to make them go hunt for their remaining stock of Specials, but it turned out that they had nineteen copies in the store – they just hadn’t put them on the shelves yet. I had to get Uglies at Amazon when it came out, and I had to hunt for Pretties, but got it locally; getting Specials was dead easy.

  20. Yes w00t indeed… is that your 13th book involving the powerpuff one? Diamonds are for Princesses… o.0?

  25. Congrats Scott!——–
    you do not know how much i have been waiting for Specials to come out and just finished reading it yesterday and like Hannah, i didn’t know how you were to going to finish it when there were like……….40 pages left of the book but i love the ending. I wonder what happens afterwards with Tally………………….

  29. Many congratulations, Scott! Hard to imagine what kind of other big news could top this!

  31. i’m sorry to say that i don’t have any good stories about finding the books, which i borrowed from my creepy older sister. i did, however, wait a very long time to read the last one. ofcourse, it was definateley worth the wait! i stayed up ’till four in the morning last night reading, and just finished it less than a minute ago. any suggestions on another series fro someone who has thoroughly enjoyed this one, as well as the Holly Black ones mentioned before?

  32. Congratulations, Mr. NYTBA! Can’t wait to say it with sake next time you’re in NYC.

    I’m *so* not surprised, though. It’s where you belong!

    I just did my bit for getting you on the Canadian Times Bestseller list, cuz I want my Specials to match! 🙂

  37. YES! CONGRATS! w007!!!
    You are a FANTASTIC writier, with an awesome series that TOTALLY deserves the honor! As for the stuff about the lists being fake, well, psh…lol. Details, details.
    I’m so psyched Specials is out!!!!!! Totally bubbly, of course. I am now on Pretties and plan on finishing it ASAP to read Specials. So excited!!!

  38. A million kudos to you Scott!!! I’ve talked up your books so much at school that about 6 people nearly beat me up for my pre May-9th copy of Specials, and now when I say “My favorite author is Scott Westerfeld” people not only know who I’m talking about, they agree with me. Whoa. What a difference one school year can make.

  39. Thanks for all your congrats! Much appreciated.

    Hmm, suggestions. The thing is, I’ve been reading all graphic novels the last couple of weeks. Scott Pilgrim totally rocks, as does Ex Machina (which is old news, I know). Also there’s this Shojobeat manga called Nana that’s really, really good.

    Regular-books-wise: I’m about to start Philip Reeve’s third book, Infernal Devices. Oh yeah, and there’s a great book called Pucker, by Melanie Gideon, that comes out next week. It’s got a blurb by me on the cover. A really cool parallel-world book, with some of the same themes as Uglies, but very different.

  41. and p.s. Aussies totally rocking out on the NYT bestseller list! Scott and Markus!

    (scott, I’m claiming you as an aussie)


  42. yay!
    this is me so happy,
    i dance when i’m happy.
    good job scott!!!
    (i always spell your name scoot…)

    also,
    i hope you know i’m drawing pictures for you,
    instead of doing homework.
    tsk tsk

  44. I loved Just Listen!!!! Sarah Desson is my favorite non-fantasy, YA, romance-but-still-plot-filled author. Wow, two of my favorite authors on the NYT list at the same time… will the world now implode?

  45. Yes! NY Times! That is so awesome. I have been contributing to your list of fans with my reccomendations, too. My freinds are all urging each other to read faster.

  46. YAY! Good job Scott! Although in my opinion, anything by you should be NUMBER ONE!
    P.S. Abberdoodles, hurry up. BTW, note that I am LooLoo, not LolaStarr*

  47. Yay! Thats so awesome!

    I wanna go get the book sooooooo bad. The day it came out was supposed to be the day I got my license. But I didn’t get a chance to go…. So now I have this thing where I HAVE to drive myself to go buy it without the ‘rents. I’ll get it Saturday! I can’t wait!

    Once again, congrats! 😀

  48. Yes! Specials is out! Finally got a copy. It should be number one instead! Ward off the darklings! It’s the ‘thirteenth’ book! I miss Jess and the other midnighters! I hope you create another trilogy.

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