Big Sales: Meyer Reigns Supreme

2008 Sales: Meyer Wins
 Nielsen BookScan list of the top 50 titles from 2008. Among houses, Meyer’s publisher Hachette was the clear leader, with 17 of the top 50 sellers. Top agency goes to Writers House, which represents Meyer, Paolini, Ken Follett, and Nora Roberts.
1     Breaking Dawn    Meyer, Stephenie    3,310,000    
2     Twilight     Meyer, Stephenie    3,175,000     
3     A New Earth     Tolle, Eckhart    3,146,000     
4     The Last Lecture     Pausch, Randy    2,705,000     
5     New Moon     Meyer, Stephenie    2,667,000     
6     Eclipse    Meyer, Stephenie    2,563,000     
7     The Shack     Young, William    2,551,000     
8     The Tales of Beedle the Bard     Rowling, JK    1,822,000     
9     Brisingr     Paolini, Christopher      1,312,000     
10     Eat, Pray, Love     Gilbert, Elizabeth     1,274,000     
11     Three Cups of Tea     Mortenson, Greg    1,099,000     
12     The Appeal     Grisham, John     954,000     
13     New Moon     Meyer, Stephenie     890,000     
14     The Secret     Byrne,    Rhonda     828,000     
15     The Host     Meyer, Stephenie     794,000     
16     The Audacity of Hope     Obama, Barack    764,000     
17     Diary of a Wimpy Kid     Kinney, Jeff        721,000     
18     Eat This Not That!     Zinczenko, David    706,000     
19     Rodrick Rules     Kinney, Jeff 696,000     
20     The Friday Night Knitting Club     Jacobs, Kate        683,000     
21     Dreams from My Father  Obama, Barack         680,000     
22     Water for Elephants     Gruen, Sara     638,000     
23     The Kite Runner     Hosseini, Khaled     602,000     
24     Twilight     Meyer, Stephenie     584,000     
25     The Story of Edgar Sawtelle         Wroblewski,    David     580,000     
26     The Lucky One     Sparks, Nicholas    575,000     
27     Skinny Bitch     Barnouin, Kim    565,000     
28     Playing for Pizza     Grisham, John    493,000     
29     The Power of Now     Tolle,    Eckhart 489,000     
30     Twilight     Meyer, Stephenie    479,000     
31     When You Are Engulfed in Flame     Sedaris, David     477,000     
32     Cross Country     Patterson, James     474,000     
33     Fearless Fourteen     Evanovich, Janet    472,000     
34     The Christmas Sweater    Beck, Glenn     469,000     
35     Nineteen Minutes     Picoult, Jodi     461,000     
36     The Pillars of the Earth     Follett, Ken         456,000     
37     Dewey: The Small-Town Library         Myron, Vicki      449,000     
38     Marley & Me     Grogan, John        444,000     
39     7th Heaven     Patterson, James    441,000     
40     Audition: A Memoir         Walters, Barbara     437,000     
41     The Hollow  Roberts, Nora     9780515144598         427,000     
42     Twilight (with poster) Meyer, Stephenie         425,000     
43     Outliers     Gladwell, Malcolm    420,000     
44     90 Minutes in Heaven     Piper,    Don    418,000     
45     Strengths Finder    2.0     Rath, Tom     399,000     
46     A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity     O’Reilly, Bill     387,000     
47     Sail    Patterson, James    383,000     
48     The Battle of the Labyrinth     Riordan, Rick        382,000     
49     Gallop!     Seder, Rufus    Butler 379,000     
50     The Alchemist     Coelho, Paulo      377,000    
Bookseller

Breaking Dawn

 

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

First line: “I’d had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn’t something you ever really got used to.”

Stephenie Meyer’s third book in the Bella saga, Eclipse, ended on a high note, questioning the future of the protagonist and her immortal love interest and with the promise that the sappy, “my soul isn’t complete without you” melodrama was at a close. The final installment Breaking Dawn, however, takes that high note, shoves it into a ruffled wedding dress and beats it to death with a high-heeled white shoe.

I excitedly cracked open Breaking Dawn on the day it came out in anticipation of Bella’s heartbreaking decision to choose Edward, the annoyingly perfect vampire, or Jacob, her werewolf best friend who not loved her for her. Instead, the story plunged right into pre-wedding bliss, not a whiff of conflict anywhere. A sickly sweet wedding in chapter three oozes into a shiny, plastic honeymoon on a private island. Continue reading

Twilight Series

 

Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer

First line:  ”I’d never given much thought to how I would die – though I’d had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.”
 
I resisted this book series – a vampire love story set in the modern day gloom of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula – for months. I’d pass it by with its beguiling jacket design and linger, toying with the idea of giving in and following the masses of emotional teenage girls a decade younger than myself that were simply rabid for the books. The kicker to finally get the tome into my hands was innocent enough: Volunteering for a local film festival, I found myself for five hours facing a poster. A poster for a movie for a certain book that featured what was unmistakably an actor from the one series that I am rabid about – Harry Potter.
There was no going back and I bought the book immediately. And, you know what, I loved it. And, then I bought the next two in the series and sped through them faster than the vampire love interest flies through the misty Washington woods searching for prey. There are aspects of the books –Twilight and the sequels New Moon and Eclipse – that I find supremely annoying, probably more so because I know these are the same aspects that those hordes of teen girls find irresistible. But Meyer’s writing is superb and pulls you in for a fast-paced, can’t-turn-the-page-quickly-enough read.   
The fourth and final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, is released August 2, with the movie version of Twilight to follow this December and I’m finding that I can barely stand the wait. Maybe if I had a sexy vampire love interest or a scruffy werewolf best friend to occupy me… 

For: The shy, emotional teen girl that aches for a heart-shattering obsession with the undead (and shuns the daylight) and for the loud, straight-forward non-teen that switches out the book jacket to read on the plane home so no one knows what a nerd she is (or, so I’ve heard). – Jenny Coon Peterson

 

Twilight Teaser Trailer

The Meyer Empire reigns supreme with the author’s first novel in the Twilight series to hit the big screen on December 12th, and her fourth book in the series to hit shelves in August. Because I was a) curious and b) a fan of vampire stories, I decided to take a bite. Pun intended. I just finished Twilight and can see why fans are so rabid about Stephanie Meyer’s Edward Cullen, the gorgeous vampire who has been seventeen for a very, very long time. There’s is a Romeo & Juliet Meets Beauty & the Beast kind of love story. So stay tuned later this week when we’ll review the first three books. Pick up a copy of Entertainment Weekly to read the cover story on the movie and a nice interview with the humble young author. 

Here’s the trailer. What do you think?