Every year Amazon pushes out a press release that talks about the top trends of the Christmas season and also what were the most popular items. Many media outlets have talked about how Alexa sales went through the roof this year or what electronics sold the most units. Lost in the shuffle were a number of audiobook, ebook and Amazon Bookstore statistics that go far beyond the best of lists Amazon publishers every year.
- The most-read Kindle book in Amazon First Reads in 2017 was, Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan.
- The best-selling and most-listened-to audiobook of 2017 was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson, narrated by Roger Wayne.
- The most-listened-to fiction audiobook of 2017 was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale.
- The most-commented-on audiobook of 2017 was Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, narrated by the author.
- According to Amazon Charts, the most read and most gifted Kindle book in the U.S. this holiday season was Origin: A Novel by Dan Brown.
- According to Amazon Charts, the top book Kindle readers in the U.S. found ‘Unputdownable’ this holiday season was Year One: Chronicles of the One, Book 1 by Nora Roberts, reading it cover-to-cover faster than other books.
- According to Amazon Charts, the Most Wished For books of 2017 in the U.S. were: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
- Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was the most borrowed book from Prime Reading, worldwide, in 2017.
- Across Amazon Books’ 13 bookstores, the top selling nonfiction book was Obama: An Intimate Portrait by Pete Souza; the top selling fiction book was Origin by Dan Brown; the top selling kids book was Diary of a Wimpy Kid #12, The Getaway by Jeff Kinney; and, the top selling poetry book was the sun and her flowers by Rumi Kaur.
- Across Amazon Books’ 13 bookstores, one out of seven customers who purchased a book also donated a children’s book to local charities supporting children in need. The top selling book given to local charities was the classic, Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman; it was also the top selling book across all 13 stores.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
