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Bible divinely inspired?

I have never heard any priest mention divine inspiration for any part of the Bible, except possibly Psalms. They are written in the style of historical accounts (whether true or not). Surely Jesus is supposed to be the revelation, not the books about him? EamonnPKeane (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Divine inspiration is definitely the traditional Christian position. That phrase allows considerable wiggle room on what is meant. See [1] for a discussion from a Catholic perspective. You could argue that a Wikipedia should take a consistently secular position, but I think the current approach creates less rancor than the secularist one would. Mark Foskey (talk) 02:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


"Sold" vs. "Distributed"

The reference for "Mein Kampf" states only that a certain number of copies were "distributed" (presumably without charge), not that they were "sold." As a general rule, shouldn't the list be restricted only to books for which there is a specific claim regarding numbers sold? Fragesteller (talk) 02:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a point-of-information question really - how many of the copies of the Bible we have listed were sold, and how many distributed. I'd imagine the situation is similar with the top five of the list, and probably some members lower down is that similar. There is also a somewhat arbitrary distinction in some cases between 'sold' and 'distributed' - that is if a copy of the bible is given to all graduating students at a school, but these were purchased by the school, have they been sold or distributed? --Neo (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
To be accurate, it should probably be renamed to "list of books with most copies in print", which is less fancy, of course... You can never completely avoid this of course (if a book is compulsory reading at school, is it still truly "sold"?). Fram (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A problem with counting "books in print" is that the overwhelming majority of sources list (supposedly) numbers of books sold. Very few list numbers of books in print, and in certain cases those numbers can be very different. I suppose that in most situations it's not a huge proportional difference--perhaps 10% or so?--but we don't really know. Fragesteller (talk) 22:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Da Vinci Code, and reliable sources

I believe it is an error to consider the 57 million sales figure quoted in a two-year-old newspaper article to be more reliable than the 70 million listed on the author's web page. Sales figures quoted in news accounts are notoriously unreliable and out-of-date, often based on little or no research or on very outdated information. That is the main reason such figures are so often completely inconsistent with each other. By contrast, authors and publishers can be expected to have access to the most complete, reliable, and up-to-date sales figures for their own books. I think there is little incentive for them to misrepresent those figures since, in many cases, that could subject them to legal sanctions. I put much more trust in sales figures released by the publisher than in those from any other source. Fragesteller (talk) 03:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)



Other claims regarding Da Vinci Code sales:


60.5 million as of May 2006 http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110008395

80 million copies in print as of January 2008 http://www.booktribes.com/blog/2008/01/25/da-vinci-code-mystery/

over 100 million copies as of November 2006 http://www.amazon.ca/Vinci-Code-Two-Disc-Widescreen-Special/dp/B000I5Y8G4, http://ultimatedvd.org/En/DVDs/Region-1/Details.aspx?ASIN=B00005JOC9

Fragesteller (talk) 21:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


The quote reads "over 100 million copies of Dan Brown's book sold," so it says "book" [singular] as opposed to "books" [plural]. I'm not saying it's correct--to the contrary, I'm sure it's wrong--I'm simply trying to point out how unreliable various reports can be. That's why I put the most confidence in up-to-date figures from the publisher or author--when they are available. In this case it seems to be 80 million in print with 70 million sold. Fragesteller (talk) 14:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that sources are not really consistent, that's why on my article (bestselling authors), I used a minimum and maximum estimate, which gives IMO a better view of reality (if you exclude clearly wrong ones, like the source that said that Perfume had sold 150 million copies...). But to prefer publisher's numbers over those given in independent reliable sources (not blogs, please) runs contrary to our WP:RS guideline, and can be equally unreliable (as evidenced by the Clive Cussler lawsuit). Perhaps we need three columns: minimum estimate, maximum estimate, and publisher's or author's estimate? Fram (talk) 09:15, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

But what is an independent reliable source? For mass-marketed megasellers, such as those on this list, even Nielsen Bookscan is known to miss a significant proportion of sales due to their reporting criteria. News organization figures seem to be almost uniformly pure guesswork, and not high quality at that. If we can presume that really egregious frauds (such as alleged against Cussler) are now minimized due to the operation of Nielsen and similar organizations, the most reliable current sales figures should come from publishers. The only alternative would be a careful estimate by a true expert or industry insider. I'm not sure that I've ever seen such an estimate for any book, although I suppose some of them exist. Fragesteller (talk) 21:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

More work needed

The following books need sourced counts:

Should these be listed in a footnote of some kind? The anecdotal evidence in favor of their placement on the list would justify some mention in all fairness.Brian0324 (talk) 16:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And dozens of others... No footnote listing specific titles (no way to tell which to include or exclude), but a general footnote that this list is incomplete is more than welcome of course. Fram (talk) 09:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Footnote (or hatnote) added now seems to be perfect to me. Fram (talk) 15:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Dianetics Claim

The citation for the number of books sold by Scientology is surely questionable?

It cites an article which merely mentions "Scientology claims to have sold 20 million".

Only scanning the verifiability section - this seems to go against many standards. Ought it not to be removed unless a more reliable/substantiated claim can be given? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.152.254 (talk) 20:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Book Author(s) Original language First published Approximate sales Genre
Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health L. Ron Hubbard English 1950 20 million[1] Non-fiction/Self-help

See Wikipedia:Verifiability

Ruokasi (talk) 13:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Goosebumps

Why is the Goosebumps series listed twice with two different figures? Can someone who is familiar with this article investigate? Thanks. ukforever (talk) 21:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The lower figure was cited from a source published in 2003 while the higher figure was more recent. The older source should be removed. Ruokasi (talk) 23:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, this was my mistake. I added the new one but did a copy-paste instead of a cut-and-paste of the old one. Thanks for catching this! Fram (talk) 07:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


Where's "Pilgrim's Progress"?

I thought Pilgrim's Progress was the second best-selling book of all time. Have I been misinformed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.95.228.183 (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The current list is obviously incomplete, but we only want to include items for which we have found a reliable source. So if you can find a book, newspaper, magazine, ... with actual figures (estimatse, obviously) for Pilgrim's Progress, you are more than welcome to add it. Until then, it has to stay out... It isn't the only big name, by the way: Don Quixote has sold a few hundred million copies, but we don't have an actual figure for the moment, so it is not included. Fram (talk) 04:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No citation for Mahabarat, gita and other indian book?

Unlike with all other books/series, the claimed sale for indian books miss citation. Doesn't that mean that these names should be removed from the list until citations are provided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imdost (talk • contribs) 11:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Traditional Indian books are specific that they are in print by many publishing houses since the printing was introduced to India. Thus it may not be possible to gather complete numbers. However, there's one exception, the book distribution stats by ISKCON with the number of sold books from its establishment in 1966: over 477 million: http://www.wsnl.net/wsnhome.htm Jan 90.178.151.214 (talk) 05:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

And Then There Were None

The reference provided in the article does not seem to include a claim for number of copies sold. A reliable source must be provided or the item should be removed.Fragesteller (talk) 03:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is a source that says "over 100 million copies sold." It's a publisher's book description, but I don't know if it should be considered a reliable source. http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060736330/And_Then_There_Were_None/index.aspx Fragesteller (talk) 09:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None was estimated as selling 100 Million Copies by the early nineties, surely there's a higher figure by now?

Also, the Poirot series of novels should surely be in the 100s of millions, given that Agatha Christie has been estimated as selling 2-4 billion, and more than a third of the novels she wrote were Poirot? Surely his novels must be in the region of 6-800 million, probably more given he was her best loved character and several of her other novels sold less due to lack of a detective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.38.233.89 (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

True, but we need reliable independent sources to include or update any figures. The list is definitely incomplete, but we are not going to add any educated guesswork to it (no offense intended, your remarks were quite correct). We don't have "Maigret" by Simenon either, even though these should also be in the hundreds of millions... Whenever we come across a realible, believable source, we add it. Fram (talk) 08:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Les Miserables???

I highly doubt Les Miserables hasn't sold upwards of 100 million copies??? Surely there must a figure on it somewhere.TheLemonOfIchabod (talk) 05:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The Koran

An anonymous editor has asked why the Koran is not included. I suspect that one of the reasons is that it is much more widely owned than sold, but can anyone find any published figures on sales? Dbfirs 23:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

It is included under a different spelling: القرآن ‎(The Qur’ān) Fragesteller (talk) 18:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I should have known this, but I'd forgotten the apostrophe. I'll pass on the message to the anonymous editor. Dbfirs 08:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Twilight

A news article published today claims that sales have reached 25 million copies: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/11/16/2008-11-16_why_twilight_zoners_love_a_little_teenag.html Since this is such a big jump from claims made less than one month ago (i.e., 17 million), I have held off making changes in the article. Fragesteller (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)


Atlas Shruged?

Why didn't this ever make the list. Their website [2] claims over 6.2 million. Lou I (talk) 22:39, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Because a) only books with at least sales of 10 million are included, and b) no independent reliable source is provided, as is done for the other entries. Fram (talk) 08:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

What defines a series?

With entries for Gateway Books and A Child's First Library of Learning (different authors, different subjects, same publisher), Dragonlance (different authors, different characters, same publisher) and The World Almanac and Guinness Book of World Records (periodicals), it isn't clear what is excluded. By these standards, I could argue to include Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Presents (different authors, different subjects, same publisher, periodicals). The publisher Harlequin Enterprises sold 131 million copies of all books in 2006 alone. I think that Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Presents are both more an imprint than a series. But what is the difference? NWeber (talk) 16:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

What about Homer?

Have there really been more copies of Jaws sold than The Iliad and the Odyssey? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.58.228.74 (talk) 03:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The Elements, of Euclid?

According to Wikipedia [3], this is the most influential book in western culture. Also, it's the second most published book ever, right after the Bible. So...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.65.149.127 (talk) 17:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Number of editions, not number of copies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.63.24 (talk) 20:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Something is rotten

Why in the name of Lear would we not include Shakespeare's books of plays? They are books. This is a list of best-selling books. They rival the bible for sales. It does not say "list of best-selling novels" or any other specific category other than books. What deep-seated mania against transcribed plays has made the article's author lose so much complexion? Chicopac (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

What reliable sources citing more or less specific numbers for any of his plays or collections are available? There is no reason not to include them except the lack of sourceable figures. On the list of best-selling fiction authors, he is at the top, but even there it was hard to find a good source. Fram (talk) 20:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
In the intro, it seems to say these are excluded because they are plays. I agree with Chicopac. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 07:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
From a practical perspective I can see several problems with including the works of Shakespeare in the list;
  • Are we lisiting individual plays, or collections?
  • If we list individual plays do we count sales in a collection/folio as a sale, or sales of play-scripts (i.e. for the use of Actors) as well as editions published in book form (with explanatory notes, etc.)
  • If we are listing collections then are we comparing like-with-like, for instance does the inclusion of Pericles, Prince of Tyre and/or The Two Noble Kinsmen make the collection the same.
  • Do explanatory notes alter the situation? Is it correct to compare an edition consisting only of the text of the plays with one in which there are additional notes on context.
None of these, are of course insurmountable, but all should be considered (and indeed some will occur with other old texts, or collections - for instance of short stories). I suspect that originally the text was simply formalising the existing situation - i.e. no plays were listed, so no plays should be listed. --Neil (talk) 09:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Where's the rest of Dickens?

I find it hard to believe that of the works of Charles Dickens only "A tale of two Cities" makes it into the list, especially as it is so high up. Could whoever put that title in perhaps do some research into sale of Dickens' other works? I would expect Great Expectations and Oliver Twist to have high sales for example. Ben E 14.30, 15 May 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.156.131.8 (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


Mein Kanpf

On the article of Hadolf hitler's Mein Kampf, we can see that the book had sold 80.000.000 copies, but only 10.000.000 are mentionned here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.201.56 (talk) 23:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't find the 80,000,000 figure in Mein Kampf. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources, unreliable figures

Entertainment Weekly claims that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire alone has sold 400 million copies[4], while the Daily Star, only two days later, reports it has sold only 6 million copies...[5] A good reason not to include figures for the separate HP books until more reliable ones are available, and a good indication that when a figure seeems seriously off, it's better not to include it until we have some form of confirmation. Fram (talk) 09:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, the second source says "over 6 million copies", so in principle the two sources do not contradict each other... though it's certainly dubious. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Question about Bible copies sold

In the article, there are two sources cited for copies of Bibles distributed/sold.

One source states 2.5 billion, another source states "more than 6 billion".

Neither source provides proof of these claims or an explanation how the author arrived at this number. I don't think these claims can be substantiated, and thus should be listed as "unverified" unless someone can provide a source that uses a scientific method to estimate total copies and qualify exactly what that number means. From what year to what year?

Unless this information is provided, the claims, which have quite a disparity between themselves, are irrelevant within the scope of this article.

I don't know if this has been discussed previously, but I don't see a talking point about it on this discussion page. Nuriko (talk) 22:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

In online discussions, there is comment that there are no reliable figures as to how many bibles have been sold or given away, only that the number is extremely large. The Gideons International, just one organization dedicated to giving away bibles, states that it has placed "more than 1.3 billion Bibles and New Testaments". This brings up another problem. Very many of the stated bible gifts and sales will be for works that many would not consider "The Bible"...they will be for the "New Testament" only.- sinneed (talk) 13:36, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Top 10 in 2002

:The 6 billion is to a comcast personal page. I am removing it. Easily reverted if someone feels strongly but wp:SELFPUB would not apply and this is clearly a self-published source.- sinneed (talk) 13:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC) Only the URL led there. Taking out just the URL. The citation is to the book.- sinneed (talk) 13:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Book of Mormon clarification

undid: 11:01, 1 October 2009 98.234.53.26 (talk) (78,598 bytes) (Clarifies the transient nature of BOM; which removed the line "Unlike most books on this list, the Book of Mormon has been extensively and repeatedly modified, according to dictates of church officials." from the 'Claims between 100 million and 1 billion copies' Heading under the 'Approximate sales' column of the table. Unreferenced and biased claim, also unnecessary data for the table. Most of the top best-selling books on this list have multiple editions including the Boy Scout Handbook which each edition bears little resemblance to it's previous version. Bunjamins (talk) 20:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Table titles

Can someone fix the titles for the 1 billion+ and 100 million - 1 billion tables? Both of the titles appear consecutively and then the tables. I tried to fix it but I can't apparently. Lomacar (talk) 18:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed! Fram (talk) 07:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ben Hur

Our article says Ben Hur sold more copies than Gone with the Wind, but I can't find a recent total. DOR (HK) (talk) 04:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's one of the many titles which should be in the list, but can't be as long as we don't have a good source for it. "Quo Vadis" is a similar one. Fram (talk) 07:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

All Quiet on the Western Front - missing

Isn't there missing Erich Maria Remarque's bestseller All Quiet on the Western Front? The book was sold over 20 million times world wide. It was translated in over 26 languages and it even was the base for a oscar winning film with the same name.

It's almost a shame to not list a masterpiece like this.

So far IMO this list is not accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.75.124.213 (talk) 16:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a reference?--Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

books about asia

China has been mass producing books for ages. I was looking to see the below probably on the list, with maybe a few hundred million readers each? These both used movable type mass printing, research needed:
1. Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en - China's ancient children's fantasy novel about India and western lands. Recent hollywood movie "Forbidden Kingdom" with Jet Li featured the protagonist the Monkey King from this book.
2. Romance 3 Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong - very famous book in East and South Asia. Probably most read book by East Asian males over the last 6-700 years, being an interesting combination of history, tactics, brotherhood and heroism. Today well known in opera, comics, video games. Was told it was a must-read for every soldier in the South Korean army. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.154.193 (talk) 08:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

What are the best books ever sold?

I understand that this page is incomplete and someone's gonna have to improve it, so we'll know what books are worth reading. Drunkenpeter99 (talk) 15:26, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

No, such information will never be added, as that is personal opinion, not bare facts. Fram (talk) 07:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis

This is not good enough:

The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources.

Why not pick the lowest estimate in reliable, independent sources? Moreover, if two sources give different numbers, how can they both be reliable? This kind of cherry-picking is worthless. Given how these supposedly reliable sources contradict each other, the standard of reliability needs to raised to a higher level. The best approximation to this article that could be encyclopedic would be to name each sufficiently-reliable authority that has offered an opinion on the 1, 10, or n best-selling books, and list all its nominated titles and sales estimates. The discrepancies between them need to be shown to the reader, not swept under the rug provided by the sentence quoted above. jnestorius(talk) 19:01, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The "authorities" that offer opinions on the 1, 10, or n best-selling books are, I believe, uniformly worthless since they never offer useful references (or any references) for their listings. The references we cite in this article do -- at least occasionally -- base their numbers on actual investigations or on data offered by sources that are legitimate authorities on individual books. Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly true that many of the supposedly "reliable" sources we cite here are also worthless since so few give firm grounds or evidence for their estimates. This list, together with its extensive list of references, has the single merit of being (probably) the only listing anywhere that makes a serious effort at being both comprehensive and based on cited references.
I also don't see any reason to call this page a "synthesis that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources." It is simply an compilation based on objective criteria ["highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources"], just as are thousands of other compilations and listings on Wikipedia. That is, no idea is conveyed apart from the ordered list, similiar to Wikipedia listings of languages with the most speakers or nations with the largest populations. Fragesteller (talk) 06:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
What we could do is what I've done at List of best-selling fiction authors: add a lowest reliable (recent) estimate as well. However, for the vast majority of books (and authors), these two estimates are fairly close to one another, and won't make a huge difference. In the case of seeemingly extreme figures, we use our editorial judgment and don't include anything that seems to be an error (e.g. being ten times the figure given by every other source), or wait for confirmation from different sources. But in the end, this is not about WP:SYNTH, but about WP:V: we don't pretend to offer the truth, but we reproduce what can be found in reliable, independent sources (even if they are often parroting primary sources). As Fragesteller says, with all its defaults, this list is probably the best of its kind available on- or offline, on a subject that is of serious interest to many readers and media. This article is viewed more than 100,000 times a month, making it one of the more often viewed articles on Wikipedia. Any improvements you want to make are welcome, and if you want to include sepcific discrepancies for certain titles, be free to do so. Fram (talk) 06:45, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

It says "reported in reliable, independent sources" when it actually means "reported in a newspaper article a Wikipedian happens to have come across". What about all the other newspaper articles you haven't read? Look at the "Books left out of the list for lack of reliable sources" section. The whole article is just a collage of original research. The List of languages by number of native speakers quotes two sources consistently for the top places, and relies on scholarly sources for the lower ranks. The List of countries by population is based on official national statistics or UN estimates. If a newspaper article next week prints a higher population for Paraguay, or a greater number of Telugu speakers, those lists won't change; but if a it says Peter Rabbit has sold 47 million copies, this list will change...or not, if none of the editors here happens to read it. We all seem to agree that there is no comprehensive reliable global source for these statistics. You think this cobbled-together farrago is better than nothing; I think it's worse than nothing. The comment "we don't pretend to offer the truth" is breathtaking. I wonder how many of the 100,000 readers a month are under the impression that you are offering the truth? jnestorius(talk) 18:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

If you are aware of better sources, why not cite them? Over the years, the editors of this page have mounted a fairly intensive search for relevant on-line references and have made systematic efforts to discern when sources were clearly unreliable. There is much less fluctuation in the figures now than in earlier years. Previously the listings did, indeed, often vary depending on whatever article somebody had seen that week or, worse, whatever guess somebody wanted to post. Of course there are not and will never be sources remotely as reliable as those for country populations or number of language speakers; nonetheless, there are SOME sources that have SOME degree of authority. Due to the stringent citation requirements we have used here the readers of this page are free to check the sources used and judge for themselves the credibility of those sources. Regarding original research, you can find some of that here in the Discussion section but not in the article itself; every item there has a non-Wikipedia source. Whether all of this amounts to something that is better than or worse than nothing, readers will have to judge for themselves. Fragesteller (talk) 08:25, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
The decision about which sources to include seems, from your account, to have been based on preferring those that agree with each other. If six newspapers give figures, and four are similar, with the other two as outliers, that does not mean the four that coincide are more reliable; it may well mean that they all quote from the same initial source. or from one another. Therefore the winnowing process that you describe as having taken place over the past few years is still OR.
My suggestion for rewriting this article would be to begin with a prominent, detailed caveat stating that estimates are often speculative, biased, or highly variant, and that where trusted sales figures do exist, mainly at national level, they are often proprietary and/or confidential. The bestseller article has relevant material, though it's not well cited. There is a difference between copyrighted works and out-of-copyright works, which merits separate columns or tables; the former figures are generally more reliable. It might be wise to have separate columns for national and global totals, since some national totals are more reliable than others. Finally, and most importantly, once you have decided on a threshold for reliability of sources, then I suggest all figures for a given book that meet that threshold should be quoted, together with the date. Obviously an older figure will not count sales subsequent to its date, but may still be informative (especially if it is bigger than a later-dated estimate). A notes column could note instances where sales estimate X has been explicitly endorsed/criticised by source Y. Clearly, for some books, you'll end up with a large number of different citations for different figures; that's more appropriate than doing the selection of just one or two figures here on the Talk page; it lets the readers decide rather than having editors make that decision for them. To save some space, I think the sales figure can take "millions" as read.
I appreciate that a lot of work has gone into this page; but I believe more of that work needs to be visible to the reader to prevent it being SYN/OR. jnestorius(talk) 10:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
The winnowing process, for the most part, consists of (1) requiring citation to some public-domain reference for each item, (2) updating figures when more recent sources indicate larger figures that are not wildly inconsistent with previous figures (wildly inconsistent = order of magnitude difference), and (3) rejecting figures that are MANIFESTLY unreliable--the equivalent of a local newspaper claiming that the U.S. population is 630 million. None of this is original research, and in some cases there are even citations to the rejected sources within the reference section. I have no personal threshold for reliability of sources; however, order-of-magnitude conflicts with previous reports definitely catch my eye and I will search for supporting references in such rare cases.
I have no objection to the caveat you recommend (although I'm not sure what you mean by "the national level"). I have no illusions about the unreliability of many of the figures cited here; nonetheless, I think it's a lot less bad than the many "top ten" or "all-time" lists that have circulated during the past 20 years. That may not be a strong recommendation, but I think it's adequate justification for the existence of the page.
Regarding the rewrites you suggest: well, many hundreds or even thousands of editor-hours have gone into the current, limited-format page. If you have the resources to attempt the massive rewrite you suggest, I suppose you're free to carry it out. I suggest that you post a model version here on the Discussion page before converting the entire page to your recommended design. Fragesteller (talk) 01:38, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

You state that "The comment "we don't pretend to offer the truth" is breathtaking.". No, it isn't, it is the first, basic line of one of our very basic policies, WP:V. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." This list is perfectly verifiable, and that's the most we can aim for. To go for the truth would be WP:OR though, which you are so worried about. As I said, you are free to add more reliable sources to the list, and to convert it to a lower estimate - higher estimate format instead of the highest estimate only one we have now. Fram (talk) 07:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Jack London

No mention of Jack London? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.171.75 (talk) 09:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Billion?

May be a lame question but I don't know if the "More than 1 billion copies" means 10^9 or 10^12 (British or American "billion"). 10^12 seems too big, but talking about the Bible it could be possible. Maybe it can be put in another way, as it can be confusing to others to. pmt7ar (talk) 19:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

It's meant to be 10^9, i.e. the "American" short-scale billion. There have been far less than 10^11 people in the world cumulated over the past 2,000 years, after all... --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Authorship of the Qur'an

There has been a bit of a debate in some updates recently between myself an an anonymous editor regarding the statement of authorship of the Qur'an (and indeed a third party who has currently altered the wording once again... I'll probably revert this in a second because it's horribly ugly). I support the previous statement that the authorship is best described as 'Traditional Muslim view: Revelation by Allah (God) through Angel Gabriel to Prophet Muhammad', whereas (s)he makes the justifiable assertation that 'a god cannot be the author of a written book...'.

To elucidate my reasons for supporting the older wording, I feel that it supports a policy of NPOV, by not speculating on the truth or otherwise of the authorship, but merely asserting that this is the 'traditional Muslim view'. One determines authorship by the origins of the thoughts, ideas and words presented, not on the scribe who committed the words to paper, or else for instance the most recent Discworld novel (narrated by Terry Pratchett to a third party) could not be described as his work. By ascribing authorship to Muhammed we adopt a point of view that the words of the Qur'an were not a direct revelation. To avoid any edit war, the input of other voices is very welcome! --Neil (talk) 19:41, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Neil! It seems to me that the only way Wikipedia can aim for genuine NPOV in these cases is to neither support nor reject the validity of supernatural religious claims. Since the ingroup perspective requires the supernatural (a deity communicating with humans), it can't be stated as a fact. The compromise wording tries to avoid that by adding caveats. However, that wording is shaky since it only applies for the assumed majority perspective of readers of that book. That makes it non-neutral. Moreover, that also raises another problem—trying to speak for individuals inside that belief system.
Instead of "speaking for" adherents of certain beliefs, I think it makes more sense to write "about" them from an external viewpoint. Obviously the separate article on the Qu'ran will discuss what is commonly held about the origins of the book, so I don't think it's a big problem to leave out an overly-qualified statement about supernatural authorship from this listing. StealthCopyEditor (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Last edit

First, there is no reason for the article to be divided into sections. Second I removed completely unsourced sections. The article is much better now, not worse as the last editor said.Cosprings (talk) 16:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Whether it is better in sections or not is a personal preference, where we can see what other people think about it. As for the rest: unsourced sections don't need to be removed if they aren't contentious or incorrect: they need to be sourced. Was there anything in these sections you disagreed with, or was it only being unsourced that was a problem? Third: your edits introduced a number of errors: it removed all uncertainty, by excluding the "dynamliclist" template and the unsourced sections. It also excludd some info on why thingsare included and why other things aren't. It is not clear to me why you wouldn't want the reader to know that the list is incomplete and has certain inclusion and exclusion rules. You also removed the source for the Qu'ran figure and changed the number without adding a source. For some reason, you exclude the original title of Pinocchio. The section you removed on Perry Rhodan and Jerry Cotton was adequately sourced, so again no reason to remove it even if you dislike unsourced sections. And the NYTimes list has no use here, as it is about what is currently a bestseller, not what is a time-independent bestseller. We wouldn't include a "player of the week" listing in an article about the all-time best soccer players (or whatever sport you prefer) either. Finally, your mega-sections included an untitled column, used only in a few articles, which istruly ugly. And The title of your second section (book series) added a stray ' . So overall, I wouldn't call it a better article after your changes. The chnage from many sections to only two is debatable, and if consensus favours your solution in this aspect, fine. The rest is just not an improvement. Fram (talk) 06:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, there is. It makes it easier to use. Pretty simple really. Abberley2 (talk) 22:11, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
How do the other changes (not the section groupings) make it "easier to use"? Fram (talk) 19:41, 31 July 2010 (UTC)


Hopelessly incomplete

The warning at the top is not sufficiently strongly worded, because the list is hopelessly, obviously incomplete. To give just two examples, if A Tale of Two Cities has sold 200 million (and I don't consider the source for that very credible) it is impossible that no other Dickens novel has sold 15 million. And only one Harry Potter novel is included, even though the series is listed as having sold over 400 million. Abberley2 (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to improve the article by adding more reliably sourced entries. There is nothing more we can do about it, really... Fram (talk) 19:42, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The only way this article could be improved is by deleting it. What's a book? What's a sale? How is the sale of a book relevant to the idea of a book or the purpose of a book? The article answers none of these questions. This is not a hollywood capitalist self controlled entity with box office receipts owned by 6 media corporations, you can't ever reliably count something like this. The list is hopelessly meaningless but what can you do, just go with it. 76.103.47.66 (talk) 08:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Bible is a Collection of Books, it is not a Single Book

Why is the Bible in this Article? This Article is only for Single Books not a Collection of Books. Or are there too many Christian supporters in Wikipedia to be blinded by facts? What use is Wikipedia if we do not go by facts. The Bible simply does not belong in this category period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.23.165.240 (talk) 22:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The common definition of a book, as used in this article, is (see Book (disambiguation)): "A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side." This certainly holds for all the copies of the bible I've seen. (Some may be split into 2 parts, called "Old Testament" and "New Testament", but so are many long books.) The fact that the chapters of the bible are also called "books" does not change this. (Or have you seen one of those "books" published separately?) Many other books are also divided into chapters called "books", e.g. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (also listed) consists of 6 "books" (and is usually published in 3 volumes). --Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:27, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
The books of the Bible are published and sold as one book. So that counts as one book. Dream Focus 21:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Independent sources

There is a dispute about whether this list should be based on reliable sources, or reliable independent sources, i.e. excluding publishers, agents, authors, etcetera. WP:V, the policy on sourcing, clearly states: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Everyone can make claims about themselves, without any indication that this is reliable information. If a reliable, independent source chooses to confirm this info by reprinting it, or does its own research to get at a number, then it becomes acceptable for us. Fram (talk) 07:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, "should" is not "must". In fact, WP:V also states in WP:SELFPUB that self-published sources may be used as a reference for themselves, as long as, among others, "there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity". Therefore, a fortiori, a publisher releasing sales figures for some of its books is an acceptable source for those sales figures if there is no reasonable doubt that they are accurate. (And that's a big "if" e.g. for obscure publishers pushing an ideological or religious agenda.) I agree completely that non-independent sources are not in general reliable since everyone can make claims about themselves, but this is already covered by insisting on reliable sources. We don't need to exclude such claims twice by insisting on reliable and independent sources.
In essence, I think we should check non-independent sources extra-carefully for their reliability, but allow those that we do consider reliable to remain when there is no independent source available for some item. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 15:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Would a notable publishing company lie? I can imagine someone lying about a poor selling book, but if it sold millions of copies they'd not need to state false numbers. And the only place people can get reliable numbers is from the primary source here, the publishing company the only ones knowing how many copies were actually sold. Waiting for someone else to quote them, makes no sense at all is these cases. Dream Focus 17:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Some or many countries have an official, independent sales figure listing, like the RIAA for records in the US. Plus, many publishing houses try to give the impression that they have a very popular author or book, e.g. with reprints of older books. Is the source [6] a reliable source for "What Does the Bible Really Teach?" and its figure of 130 million? It was used recently on our article, but I removed it. Are there really 130 million copies in print (ignoring the "sales vs. print" for the moment), or does the organisation like to inflate its membership figures? Fram (talk) 19:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Those with a religious or political reason for inflating sales figures can't be trusted, obviously. And as I stated, poorer selling books they might lie about, but after you have sold millions of copies of something, you aren't going to need to keep lying, that serving no purpose whatsoever. What countries are you referring to, and where is this information found at? How would they have any possible way of knowing that? Does every single store in the country, physical and internet, report back to them and tell when they made a sale? Dream Focus 21:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
For France, it is calculated on a panel of 1200 stores that report every sale they make[7], and then extrapolated to all stores. In the Netherlands, the CPNB keeps the statistics and gives very precise figures of the yearly sales of books, as can be seen in e.g. this article[8]. Nielsen seems to have statistics about UK books[9], of which apparently 77 million a year are pulped (i.e. printed but never sold)[10]. Publishers won't be keen to release the true sales figures of such books, obviously. I don't have a clue how to look for them, but I can only imagine that other countries have similar official or semi-official figures, derived from booksellers, not from publishers. Fram (talk) 07:21, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the interesting links! I'd always support using such official figures, if they are available. However, I don't think such figures are available for every country, e.g. in Germany I've never heard of something like that (they only publish weekly bestseller lists without giving any numbers). And the fact that independent sales figures seem not to be available even for many obvious bestsellers (e.g. the first six Harry Potter books) implies to me that such independent sales estimates are not conducted on a systematic basis.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
@Fram above: Without doing further research, I'd say that the Jehova's Witnesses source you mentioned is not a reliable source for the 130 million sales figure of "What Does the Bible Really Teach?", since they might well inflate numbers to push their agenda, just as you said. So there's doubly no reason to re-add it if we remove the "independent" requirement. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:35, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand your reasoning. There is more reason not to include it if we specifically exclude non-independent sources, since people may argue whether it is reliable or not, but it certainly isn't independent. If you allow "dependent" sources, then you remove one obstacle against such self-serving claims. Fram (talk) 20:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood my last post: With the "doubly" in the last sentence, I meant to say that it should still not be included for two reasons: 1) being not reliable and 2) being about print figures, not sales. (So the "number of reasons" would drop from three to two by removing "independent".) I suppose I should have been clearer on this. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
No problem. But I don't agree that we can make the distinction between commercial publishers as being reliable, and religious or political ones being unreliable, when it comes to information about themselves. Either may be prone to inflate their numbers or to use "printed" instead of sales (in this case, they stated it explicitly, but that will often not be the case). Note the source I gave about 77 million books a year that are pulped in the UK alone: a publisher or author won't be stating anything about these or other unexpected commercial failures. This article has some info on it, while this and this highlight practices by magazine publishers. Fram (talk) 07:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
This is a difficult issue but I must say that I believe we have to exercise judgment as to cases in which publishers' reports may provide the most reliable and authoritative sales figures. As I've mentioned in a comment in the "Harry Potter Inconsistency" section, I believe that Bloomsbury provides the only reliable worldwide sales figures for Harry Potter books. Regarding the Jehovah's Witnesses and similar religious publishers, there is a separate issue in that many or most of the printed books may be distributed and not actually sold. Fragesteller (talk) 18:05, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

We are being used...

This article by an editor of the Southern Review of Books is just a combination of an Huffington Post article and our article, with acknowledgment of the Huffington Post but without any mention of Wikipedia. I've left a comment....—Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs)

Publish Date for Bible is wrong

It currently say 300 BC to 95 AD, but the first compendium of all the various books in the Bible, did not happen until the Roman Church published it in the 200s AD..... 400+ years after the "300 BC" date given. ---- Theaveng (talk) 00:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Impossible sales numbers for Harry Potter

The article says that

  • Deathly Hallows is the highest selling HP book
  • Deathly hallows sold 44m
  • The 7 HP books combined sold 400m

But 400m/7 > 44m. Deathly Hallows cannot be the highest selling HP book. This is pretty egregious. 84.248.159.215 (talk) 13:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The article does not say that Deathly Hallows is the highest-selling HP book. However, Deathly Hallows is the only book in the Harry Potter series for which reliable worldwide sales figures have been reported; that is why it is on the list, and the other six are not on the list as individual books. There is little doubt that the highest-selling book in the series is Philosopher's Stone, but we have no reliable source to confirm that. Fragesteller (talk) 01:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Why isn't Pride and Prejudice on this list?

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" has sold over 20 million copies to date. Shouldn't it be included on this list? ForeverDusk ☾ 22:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable, independent source for this (e.g. a newspaper article), then it can and should be included.Fram (talk) 06:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sales for the Goosebumps book series need to be updated

The Goosebumps series has sold over 350 million books in all (which makes sense considering the 300 million only accounts for the first 62 books of the series, not the rest of the books). I just want to have some one check over these sources to make sure that they are reliable.

1. [11]

2. [12]

3. [13]

4. [14]

5. [15]

Thanks. Fearstreetsaga (talk) 05:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

This entry needs further editing. It seems that the number of installments should be 164 and the date range should be 1992-present. I don't think the phrase "+ spin off series" is necessary in the table although it should be explained in the footnotes. Fragesteller (talk) 06:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
At the date the source was published, there were 149 Goosebumps books, although it's unclear as to how many books the sources were referring to. I agree that it needs some editing, though. 99.248.214.243 (talk) 23:58, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Don Quixote

It is common knowledge that Don Quixote has sold over 500 million copies, and in fact, that number is conservative. It is often regarded as the second best selling book behind only the Bible, and at least conceded as the greatest selling work of fiction of all time, without out a close second. This book has been a best seller for 400+ years; it continues to sell quite well. The book is revered in virtually every spanish speaking country, generation to generation. That includes Spain's 40 million ppl., Mexico's 120 mil. ppl, Argentina's 35 mil., Cuba's 11 mil., Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, etc..., and naturally, it is similarly appreciated in Portugal and Brazil (150 mil. ppl.). As recently as 2005--the quadracentenial--the book sold 600,000 copies in 2 months ("...has sold 600,000 copies in Spain and Latin America over the past two months. "We expected to sell about a million copies throughout the year," said Alfaguara spokeswoman Angeles Aguilera. "But we actually ran out around Christmas. It's great to have Cervantes on the best-seller list after 400 years." see: http://www.newsweek.com/2005/02/27/don-quixote-slept-here.html). In the English speaking world, Don Quixote as even enjoyed similar success. It has been translated into English at least 20 times, with three translations having been published in this past decade alone: John Rutherford (2000), Edith Grossman (2003), and Tom Lathrop (2005) (see: http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2008-09/onemaster.html). Ancecdotally, the book was said to have been a favorite of the founding fathers of the USA. (see: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_02-06/033_cervantes.html, and http://www.impossibledreamspub.com/). Further, and also anectodotally: Don Quixote voted the world's best book by the world's top authors--May 2002 (see: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/05/08/1019441512275.html); and: "Around 100 well-known authors from 54 countries voted for the “most meaningful book of all time” in a poll organised by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo....Miguel de Cervantes’ tale of misguided heroism gained 50% more votes than any other book, eclipsing works by Shakespeare, Homer and Tolstoy. See: http://www.trustedlog.com/2007/10/07/is-don-quixote-best-book-ever-written/; DON QUIXOTE...has been voted the best book of all time by the world's leading authors... http://booksdir.montreal.qc.ca/articles/DonQuixoteisthebestbookofalltimesaytopauthors.htm; and: "Edith Grossman's new translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote is a landmark event. Is it? Really!? Well, yes. Yes it is! The world's first novel is consistantly voted (in all those lists we all - well, I - love: eg the Guardian's hundred best books) as the world's greatest novel. And its claim for this is pretty watertightItalic text.... http://www.readysteadybook.com/BookReview.aspx?isbn=0436205157.

So yes, absolutely, Don Quixote has sold well in excess of 500 million copies. 

/s/02 bucs, 2/1/2011.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 02bucs (talk • contribs) 14:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Don Quixote is not the only book missing from this list. A book is excluded if there is no reliable source for the total number of copies sold. When a reliable source is located, the book is put on the list; that is the only criterion. Fragesteller (talk) 06:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Something strikes me as seriously off about this work's place on the list. What sources were used to arrive at this conclusion and the 500 million figure? The only references that I could find were this article, sites that quote and/or link to this or the Quixote article (which uses this one as its only source for the bestseller fact) and an obscure site at http://www.bestsellerever.com/ which does not provide any sources of its own. Also, you'd think that Don Quixote's status as the "best selling, non-religious and non-political work of fiction of all time" by such a considerable margin would be a fact a little more commonly known than it is. Now I could be seriously off, but if someone could add a reliable source that cites Don Quixote as the bestselling work of fiction (let alone novel) by far ever printed, it would clear up the confusion. It seems to me that the figure is bunk, so I stand to be corrected.--71.60.131.108 (talk) 05:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll be bold and remove all unsourced entries. I have seen some that were very far off (unsourced 50 million, sourced 15 million, stuff like that), and we have sourced many of them. The list is incomplete anyway, so it is better to only have sourced entries and to add things as we come across them. Having said all that, it is quite obvious that the Don Quixote should be somewhere in the list and that it is one of the bestselling novels of all time. Fram (talk) 08:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Why don't we have a separate page on "most printed books" and then have an obvious disclaimer on this page that the "best selling books" page has conspicuous and ridiculous flaws until we get some cited material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.120.45.53 (talk) 12:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This article used to have in the lead "Several books that probably have high sales are omitted from this list because sales numbers have not yet been identified from reliable, independent sources.", but this was removed by someone else. I have no problem with a longer introduction indicating that the lmist is not complete, and which books we are aware of that should be included, but for which we have no numbers from reliable sources: Don Quixote, most of the individual Harry Potter books, some works by Christie, Shakespeare, Simenon, Dumas, ... But if we start including entries without sources or with poor sources, then the list will get much, much longer and will be filled with incorrect entries as well. The fairest and most Wikipedia-like way to decide then what to include and what to exclude is to leave this in the hands of independent, reliable sources, not on what we perceive as glaring omissions, errors, ... If you can find a reliable source that gives a clear number for Don Quixote, then I'll be very happy to include it here. But until then, it has to wait. As for a separate page for most printed books, that would face the exact same problems as this one. Fram (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

^^^^"...if we start including entries without sources or with poor sources, then the list will get much, much longer and will be filled with incorrect entries as well..."--I would accept that, if the "source" for "A Tale of Two Cities"'s 200 millioin wasn't "Broadway.com" (and even at that, it claims it is as "ONE of the most famous books in the history of fictional literature"--not THE most famous). I provided 2 respetable sources reflecting the common knowledge that Don Quixote has sold over 500 million copies, and included rational basis to further buttress the claim (in addition to the anecdotal stuff). Here is yet another source--see paragraph # 4, first clause: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_02-06/033_cervantes.html ("...After the Bible, Don Quixote is the most published literary work in the world..."). Additionally, what other book, more than 100 years old (let alone 400+ y/o), has been translated into another language, let alone English, and published, in the USA, three different times since 2000??? Publishers don't publish books or trnaslations for kicks; they do so, when there is a market for the books--as with Don Quixote, and the Bible. There are surely many books that can stake claims to vast numbers of sales, but none has the plethora of evidence to back the claim up, like Don Quixote. Answers.com posed the question about best selling book of all time; answer? Don Q.; Same wiht E-how. Even before I ever chimed in here, there was already a section titled "Don Quixote", already a discussion...because it's common knowledge that DQ is the greatest selling work of fiction of all time, and its absence on this list is grossly conspicuous. Deny it as you will, but the truth is the truth. The Bible is no. 1, followed by Mao Zedong's Little Red Book (though as the article points out, publication is compulsory, not market driven), then the Quran, then the first work of fiction--Don Quixote. To pretend otherwise serves more to undermine Wikipedia's credibility, than it does to preserve some arbitrary "standard" that elevates ambiguous language in "broadway.com" to some kind of revered status. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 02bucs (talk • contribs) 20:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It was already pointed out that of the two sources you cited, one was a Wikipedia copy and the other was not in any sense a reliable source. The Schiller Institute citation does not even attempt to offer an estimate of the number of copies sold, and this list is based on sales figures. No one doubts that Don Quixote is one of the best-selling books of all time. As pointed out here repeatedly, there are several other books that fall in that same category. "Common Knowledge" does not constitute a reliable source, and the "rational basis" you provided is irrelevant since it constitutes original research which is not allowed under Wikipedia rules. We know it's very difficult to find a reliable source for Don Quixote sales figures; many of us have tried to find one and failed. Until someone succeeds, the book should not be listed on this page. If you want to argue that the citation for "A Tale of Two Cities" is not reliable and should be removed, start a separate topic on the Discussion page. Fragesteller (talk) 05:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Anne Rice

This source: http://seattlepi.com/books/250280_rice01.html says that Rice's vampire novels have sold 75 million copies, suggesting that The Vampire Chronicles should probably be listed. However, I think we first need a more precise source. Fragesteller (talk) 00:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that at one point Anne Rice was included and also "Interview with a vampire" and maybe others sepperately. Either way i know her Vampire Chronicles have sold over 100m so i think she should definately be (re?)added to the list.
As always, if you or aynone else can provide a good, reliable source for a book or a series, we are more than happy to include it. But you may remember her inclusion from her place on List of best-selling fiction authors instead of here, I don't think he was ever included here, certainly not since we cleaned the list a few years ago and only kept decently sourced entries. Fram (talk) 07:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


Golden Book Encyclopedia

The Golden Book Encyclopedia does not seem to belong in this article nor do other, similar, multi-volume book sets (in contrast to multi-volume book series). A "set" is actually a single, interconnected work divided for convenience into multiple volumes; it is usually, though not always, published together as a single unit. A series is a collection of related single-volume books originally published at different times. It does not appear that this Encyclopedia was regularly updated and of course it is not, in any case, a single-volume work. Despite the wording of the cited source, the 60 million sales figure may actually apply to the sum of sales from each of the individual volumes, since sales of other Golden Books were generally below 10 million each. Fragesteller (talk) 07:01, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll add my source into the target article instead. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 19:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing the best selling book, even though every 10 years it sells more then the current #1?

It seems odd to completely remove the Bible from the list even though it is clearly #1 in sales. The reason for it's removal is highly disingenuous because most Bibles that are "given away" were still bought in the first place- then given away. The amount of Bibles that were printed with the intent to give them away WITHOUT selling them to a distributer first would account for a tiny, tiny percentage of total Bibles and is no reason to remove it from the list. Enough Bibles are sold every decade to surpass the current #1 on the list. ( NY Times - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30714F73F5D12738DDDAD0894DF405B898CF1D3 )

We have removed all the religious and political books, because "sold" is in their case a dubious concept. Furthermore, the numbers for these books are very unclear (though they are undoubtedly very high), and in the case of the Bible we would be adding up many different Bibles (the Catholic and the Protestant Bible are not the same, to give just one example). Perhaps we could create a fourth section for these books ("religious and ideological books"), if enough reliable figures can be found. Fram (talk) 07:06, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

What about Percy Jackson and the Olympians seiries

They have sold over 20 million copies — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.112.43.11 (talk) 02:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

  1. ^ Finding Stress, and Some Friction
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