THE CAREER NOVELIST
The form that is sent out became the focus of a lawsuit brought
by author William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist) in 1983. He claimed that
his novel Legion had sold enough to qualify for the Times list, but did
not get on because the snobbish editors of the Book Review left it off
the all-important form. Appearances of Legion on the lists of the Los
Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Publishers Weekly gave his claim
some weight. He called the Times negligent and said they had denied
him a possible business advantage that he was rightfully due.
Blatty's case went all the way to the Supreme Court. They refused
to hear it, though, and let stand a lower court ruling against him. It
is tough to fight the Times. It may at least make authors feel better to
know that the way the list is tabulated, especially the weighting
given to certain stores, is intended to give the Times list a more liter-
ary tone than that of other lists. In other words, certain books are not
going to get onto the Times list no matter what. (That is especially
true for Christian books, children's books, and computer titles.)
Luckily, there are other lists. While not as powerful as the Times
list, the best-seller lists of USA Today, the Wall Street }ournal, and
Publishers Weekly are all closely watched by insiders.
The USA Today list is interesting because it does not separate
sales into paperback and hardcover categories. It instead simply
ranks the nation's top fifty titles by raw unit sales. This yields some
surprises. Novels by juvenile author R. L. Stine, it seems, outsell
many best-sellers for grown-ups. The USA Today list is also timely.
The newspaper receives figures from chain stores and independents
early in the week and publishes its best-seller list that very same
Thursday.
The Wall Street journal list has some influence with upscale read-
ers partly because it is they who buy the newspaper, and partly
because the list is limited to hardcovers. The disadvantage of the
journal list is that it is tabulated entirely from numbers supplied by
the four biggest chains.
In many quarters the Publishers Weekly list is thought to give the
most accurate picture of what is happening out there in retail land.
While its sector samples are not as broad as those behind the Times
list, the way its figures are weighted may give a more accurate
reflection of mass-market tastes. In fact, when best-seller bonuses