Best Selling Black Books

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.

Imprint

  • Flatiron Books 4
  • Bloomsbury Usa 2
  • Graywolf Press 2
  • Henry Holt 2
  • Bloomsbury Ya 1
  • …

Type

  • Non-fiction 7
  • Fiction 3
  • Poetry 2

Format

  • Hardcover 6
  • Trade Paperback 6

Publisher

  • Macmillan · 12 ✖

Gender

  • Female · 12 ✖
ISBN ▼ Title Type Author Gender Publisher Format Publication Date Imprint RTD Sales YTD Sales
9781250054050 What I Know For Sure Non-fiction Oprah Winfrey Female Macmillan Hardcover 2014-09-02 Flatiron Books 259557 7051
9781250126535 Food, Health, and Happiness: 115 On-Point Recipes For Great Meals and a Better Life Non-fiction Oprah Winfrey Female Macmillan Hardcover 2017-01-03 Flatiron Books 140537 188
9781250138064 The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations Non-fiction Oprah Winfrey Female Macmillan Hardcover 2017-10-17 Flatiron Books 337207 3084
9781250170972 Children of Blood and Bone Fiction Tomi Adeyemi Female Macmillan Hardcover 2018-03-06 Henry Holt 445664 41966
9781250214805 Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change Non-fiction Stacey Abrams Female Macmillan Trade Paperback 2019-03-26 Picador Usa 106870 36966
9781250257703 Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight For a Fair America Non-fiction Stacey Abrams Female Macmillan Hardcover 2020-06-09 Henry Holt 62278 16310
9781250307507 The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose Non-fiction Oprah Winfrey Female Macmillan Hardcover 2019-03-26 Flatiron Books 170799 4342
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
9781608196265 Salvage the Bones Fiction Jesmyn Ward Female Macmillan Trade Paperback 2012-04-24 Bloomsbury Usa 179836 13233
9781632864130 White Rage: the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide Non-fiction Carol Anderson Female Macmillan Trade Paperback 2017-09-05 Bloomsbury Usa 114986 14671
9781681191072 Piecing Me Together Fiction Renée Watson Female Macmillan Trade Paperback 2018-06-05 Bloomsbury Ya 110936 23090