Why is the Amazon bestseller list like this?

I’m not entirely sure what the problem is? The Amazon best seller list has its best sellers but you don’t like them? Or am I missing something?

I don’t really understand, if you’re wanting mystery novels why don’t you look in the mystery category instead of general best sellers? Or is that what this is, in which case some of these I think are misclassified by Amazon, like Haunting Adeline

Edit: most of those are also on Kindle Unlimited which would of course boost how many people are reading them and inflate their popularity

You are searching for bestsellers, so bestsellers come up, whatever those books maybe. Search for something else.

I went with a couple Best Sellers when they popped up on my Kindle. They were … fine … (Koontz and McFadden) I guess? 2.5 stars tops; not DNF, but just kind of phoned in.

My goodreads “note to self: best-selling doesn’t mean best-written”.

I find that this sub is a great place to get inspiration, as is finding something you like on GR and then going down the rabbit hole of “Readers also enjoyed”.

I don’t see the issue. Trends happen, people actually like certain authors, people want to see what books are about. Bestsellers happen for several reasons. The authors you read however long ago can change over time. Obviously different ones have their own style. It’s on you to find new books and research the writing styles to find similar ones, or whatever else you’re looking for. It’s not Amazon’s fault. People are responsible for what they buy and review.

The bestseller list is just whatever the popular trend happens to be at the moment. Publishers love to capitalize on trends in order to pump up sales, which makes it a vicious cycle. To the point that even if a book is significantly different from the trend, it will be marketed in a trend-friendly way to attract more sales. Browse by your preferred genre if you want more variety.

Think about it like food.

There’s a lot of McDonalds, Applebees and Olive Gardens in the US. They make billions in revenue. Does that mean it’s good food? No. But they are “bestsellers”

These are the best sellers in books. Are they Nobel and Pulizter prize winners? No. But they have mass appeal, they are easy – no barrier to entry, easy to pick up and put down, no “wading through 300 pages of introspective poetic prose for a payout.” The stories they tell are familiar, which can be very satisfying if all you want to do is feed a crowd

Be aware that at least in the United States, the biggest bookbuyers are middle-aged women who have enough wealth, education, boredom, etc. to make time for reading. On average, women work less, have more patience for reading, are better educated, and do more shopping than their male counterparts. They also have a lot of emotional and childcare responsibilities that may lead them to seek forms of entertainment that are more escapist than they are Literary Masterpieces full of symbols and metaphors that can be Analyzed in a college classroom. They buy more books, and Amazon is explicitly trying to appeal to them with accessible chic lit titles in order to make money.

On the other side of the coin, most writers are women. Creative writing and English literature majors are dominated by women, so the industry is dominated by female creators. That doesn’t mean they’ll all be bestsellers, but if there’s more women in the industry, then they’ll have an easier time drawing other women into reading and buying books, which influences what books become bestsellers.

Books targeted to be wish fulfillment (or otherwise appealing) to the bored and repressed housewife and similar demographics are going to sell on Amazon, assuming the concepts are executed well. Romance sells in that demographic, as do other stories categorized as chic lit. Remember also that readers with access to enough funds to buy books directly on Amazon (or with access to good libraries) tend to be a specific type of person with a specific type of bank account. It’s not hard to envision suburbanite women purchasing these chic lit books to read for their next family vacation or their next local book club.

People (like me) who like to reread old books don’t have as much power over the market. They might prefer books that are more cerebral and literary, or books that are a part of a long doorstopper franchise or series. Even if they read a lot, they buy less, so their preferred books aren’t going to be at the top of the bestseller lists.

I don’t want to be demeaning to what older women like to read. My own demographic isn’t even so far off from theirs, and some chic lit books are among my favorites, but I can see how people who don’t click with it might be a little confused about how they keep ending up on bestseller lists. It’s not because these books are necessarily Good, though some of them are. It’s not even that they’re universally more popular than books in other genres, though again, a lot of them are. It’s because of the purchasing power of older white wealthy women.

If you go to an independent bookstore in a larger city, or even to a Barnes & Noble in a diverse location, you might see that the books promoted are very different from what Amazon thinks of as a bestseller. My local library puts forth a whole lot of nonfiction on display tables, possibly because I live in a part of a city full of students and young professionals.

If you’re not finding Amazon to be reliable, you’ll have to start sorting differently, as other commenters have suggested.

Amazon really isn’t a great place to check for bestsellers..they lean heavily toward self published and their own Amazon imprints. If you want bestsellers from major publishers check on their websites, check Kobo and Barnes and Noble best sellers and of course New York Times. This is what I have started doing.

Dude, try being primarily a SciFi reader. That shits *never* on the bestseller lists. We lucky if we get 1 or 2 in readers choice type awards even. Even awards that, ostensibly, “belong” to us are regularly half+ fantasy if fantasy is aloud 😂😭. That the list would be dominated by romance when romance is like 50% of the market should not be a surprise. (It has been a minute since I seen the stats so not the exact number. One way or the other, the romance genre eats every other genre for breakfast)

Why has this been deleted?