I’m going to let you in on a little secret: BookNet Canada can produce regional bestseller lists. Yep. We could tell you what the top 10 nonfiction books are in British Columbia and they may not match up to Ontario’s top 10.
We currently only produce bestseller lists for the Canadian market as a whole. But with this new capability, things get a little more interesting. What will we find? I suspect these lists will differ from province to province and that tastes vary a bit across the country. There must be books that really take off in Newfoundland that Manitobans haven’t even heard of. As regional (and possibly national) publications sign up to publish regional lists we will all learn a lot more about regional tastes. But for now, I’ll give you a look at some regional bestseller lists in our eNews. (Need to subscribe?)
One thing we’ll be keeping an eye out for are regional successes. Local authors and local subject matter sometimes make a big impact on sales.
Now, imagine that you love books set in the Yukon. And imagine I’m a publisher releasing a novel set in the Yukon. If I wanted to get my books your attention what would I do? There’s taking out ads, scheduling and event, and hitting all the dailies up for a review. But what if you just want to look up what to read online? I better be filling out the BISAC regional themes codes in my books’ ONIX files.
I’ve mentioned in a previous post that, while a large portion of sales still happen in brick-and-mortar stores, research and buying decisions are increasingly taking place online. Let the reader find your book when they want a Yukon novel by labeling it as such. Being specific, contrary to publisher fears, means you’ll come up in more searches—the general ones as before but now you’ll also appear in specific searches. And all that with just a few taps of the keyboard.
There’s also an ONIX field for contributor country code. All of this makes it easy for people to indulge their interests in specific places. Publishers have noticed that improved metadata leads to improved sales. And improved regional coding in metadata may improve your book’s chances of appearing in the future regional bestseller lists.
Make sure to read the next few BNC eNews where I’ll be posting regional bestseller lists and other interesting lists.
