This is a corpus of best selling books by Black authors from 2004 through September, 2021. The database includes backlist titles published earlier, but the sales data is from 2004 to September 2021. This was created as a part of an assignment to create a LibGuide for the Pratt Library and Information Studies program.
We defined "best selling" - which is a subjective term in publishing - as books that have sold over fifty-thousand (50,000) copies. We compiled book titles from a combination of best-sellers lists (e.g., The New York Times), publically available lists of books by Black authors from a variety of literary organizations, and by searching the sales of well-known Black authors on NPD Bookscan.
We're sure that we missed some best-selling books by Black authors but to our knowledge this is the first collection of high selling books by Black authors based on actual sales. We hope this will be used as a resource by writers, publishers, marketers, librarians, and anyone interested in the history and legacy of successful Black writers in book publishing.
Note: RTD means 'Retail Sales To Date', and YTD means 'Yearly Sales To Date.' Each column can be sorted by ascending or descending order, or by category, including gender (female or male), type of book (fiction, non-fiction, or poetry), publisher, author, format, imprint, etc.
ISBN ▼ | Title | Type | Author | Gender | Publisher | Format | Publication Date | Imprint | RTD Sales | YTD Sales |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
9780684843261 | For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf | Poetry | Ntozake Shange | Female | Simon & Schuster | Trade Paperback | 1997-09-01 | Scribner Book Company | 113029 | 3046 |
9781492238287 | Salt. | Poetry | Nayyirah Waheed | Female | Lightning Source Inc/LSI | Trade Paperback | 2013-09-24 | Createspace Independent Publishing Platform | 94683 | 1460 |
9781555975845 | Life on Mars | Poetry | Tracy K. Smith | Female | Macmillan | Trade Paperback | 2011-05-10 | Graywolf Press | 54503 | 2810 |
9781555976903 | Citizen: an American Lyric | Poetry | Claudia Rankine | Female | Macmillan | Trade Paperback | 2014-10-07 | Graywolf Press | 236329 | 15908 |