Talk:List of best-selling books

This page title is inaccurate

This page should be titled: List of best-selling books since 1990. Or should otherwise something that makes it clearer as to the real data contained on the page. As per the presage the requirement of verifiable sales figures means that really only sales since 1990 in western countries are well documented. By default unless one can find a good source, the overwhelming majority of popular novels from before this period are essentially excluded from consideration. Note this causes frequent and constant confusion by people citing this page! 89.2.143.30 (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

And yet only one of the 6 first books is from post-1990... While most of the sources are recent, many of the books are much older, and the best sources don't restrict themselves to recent sales figures only. The list is far from perfect, but represents a global and timeless perspective as good as reasonably possible for a summary source. While you are free to formally propose a rename, I doubt it will succeed. Fram (talk) 08:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

You are mostly correct. Figures were centrally collected in the US from the 50s at the latest. However the numbers of copies of some other books, or at least a lower or upper bound is sometimes known to within a few thousand. Generally publishers figures are reasonably reliable. The other huge factor though is the modern mass book market. Even early twentieth century books tend to report thousands or, exceptionally, tens of thousands of copies printed. These are dwarfed by modern print runs of best-selling authors, The Silmarillion, back in the 80s had a print run of one million hardback copies, for example. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC).

LOTR

The main page for LOTR states that it has sold over 150 million. If Don Quixotes estimate is included in the list of over 100 million, I don’t see why we can’t also include the LOTR estimate. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:D80E:D3BA:EFAE:8CD1 (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

That's explained in the first paragraph of the lead. CodeTalker (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a dilemma: Don Quixote is quoted in this paragraph as a book that lack comprehensive sales figures and cannot be in the list. But it is still included in the list with a unreliable source...

I decide to remove it to be consistent. Let's discuss here if that's a problem. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Part of the reason Don Quixote is mentioned in the lead is that people keep re-adding it. It is a very substantial book, and the widely spread estimates of 500m copies (present in our article for some time, before the more "modest" 100m) would be equivalent, for example of 150 years of sales at the level of the US bestseller for 1961 (Return to Peyton Place which siled 3.3 million copies that year). All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:12, 11 February 2024 (UTC).

Bible

The opening correctly references that the Bible is the best-selling book of all-time, but then it is not listed in the categories of best-selling books. It should be listed. Keystone18 (talk) 23:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Please read the last sentence of the paragraph you refer to: All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons. CodeTalker (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

"ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded" What qualifies as those three things? isn't the anonymous programme at least philosophical in its approach to quitting alcohol, narcotics etc? any autobiography of a political or religious figure is likely to push ideas of some kind, even books on scientific topics like psychological, economics or child rearing has multiple schools of thought so will promote a ideology of a sort. I think that statement essentially removes most non fiction that isn't a dictionary or some other catalogue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.71.80.38 (talk) 22:42, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

This sentence is an attempt to provide a figleaf for our uncertainty over these figures, and to avoid having to deal with boosterism, particularly with respect to the Bible vs the Q'ran. Excluding the Bible is also (IIRC) an echo of the Guinness Book of Records entry for this category for decades. It certainly needs revisiting, but carefully. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC).

Frank Herbert's Dune series

I am not a Wikipedia author, so I leave that to the experts. However, the Dune series should probably be included within the "book series" category. The first book in the 7 book series by Herbert is listed on the page with a sales total of 20,000,000. The others are likely less, but would definitely bump this series much higher as a whole. There have also been maybe another twenty books published within the same universe since the author's death by his son, Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. 184.152.35.170 (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Added. If we had figures for the rest of the series we could of course calculate the total, but for now I have put it as 20 million plus. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 19:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC).

Number of copies of sold of Your Erroneous Zones is erroneous

Number of copies sold seems to be wrong. This source says it's 100 million sold worldwide:

Yairharel (talk) 00:55, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Don Quixote - Let's just get this over with

DemianStratford is the latest user to add Don Quixote to this list with the widely contested figure of 500 million. The consensus ever since 2008 has been to exclude Don Quixote from the list due to it lacking a comprehensive, reliable sales figure and the "500 million" figure lacking basis in reliable sources. Yet, over the course of four days since the most recent addition, only two challenges have been made, both of which were promptly reverted. And this isn't the first time someone has added this entry; the last time it was added in September 2023, I reverted it due to it lacking reliable sources nine days after the edit in question. Right now, I object to including Don Quixote to this list. I want to try to settle this once and for all without turning this into an edit war.

To Demian's credit, he does supply sources that are more reputable than the ones I previously reverted. However, this does not mean they are good enough. Looking at the sources include, we got a random trivia game by Britannica, a BBC listicle aimed at children, a listicle from the questionable Business Insider, a listicle by a book publisher that might suffer from citogenesis, a random writer's advice blog, and a listicle from a website that specializes in geography. I do not find these to be sufficient sources for backing up the "500 million" claim, especially since such a figure would be unheard of for a book. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources.

However, the main reason why I believe Don Quixote should not be included is Professor William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction. While he never mentions the claimed 500 million sales figure, in footnote 20 of the introduction, Egginton addresses the similar claim that Cervantes is the "most widely read author of all time" and that Don Quixote is the "most published work of literature in history". I believe his argument strongly applies in this discussion as it pretty much serves as an academic vindication of our rationale since 2008. Egginton states that while the claim bestseller status of Don Quixote has a "rational basis" due to the sheer number of editions and translations over the span of 400 years, it is a "speculative and ultimately unprovable claim" and "we cannot how know how many copies have been made, sold, or, much less, read in the four hundred years since Don Quixote was first published". Egginton is a university professor, prolific writer, and researcher that specializes in Spanish literature and he is saying that we don't know the actual sales figure of Don Quixote. The claimed figure of 500 million is unverifiable.

TL;DR the sources used for the latest attempt including Don Quixote are insufficient to actually support a questionable sales figure that, as corroborated by a prolific university professor, is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty. As such, I move to revert this and any additional attempt at including Don Quixote in the list unless an excellent, high-quality source can be found declaring once-and-for-all the sales figure of the novel. Lazman321 (talk) 05:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)